On Monday, as Nitish Kumar took oath once again as chief minister — for the fourth time running — the image in Patna was deceptive in its sameness. Nitish’s return masks the change. With an older generation of leaders and slogans receding from the fray, Bihar politics is poised on the edge of a transition and Election 2020 was a fight for its future. For a preview of the contours of the contest in-the-making, it would be more useful to look at the two new deputy chief ministers who were also sworn in along with Nitish. Sushil Modi, seen as a quiescent Number Two, has been replaced with two deputy CMs whose selection is a nod to constituencies the BJP wishes to expand in, including and especially those that ally Nitish has been cultivating.
The contest of the future in Bihar may have two more features — one that should be disturbing to the Congress, and the other to representative democracy. The Congress’s decline in a state it once ruled seems unchecked and it continues, also, to refuse to see and hear it. The war of words sparked by senior leader Kapil Sibal’s comments in an interview to this paper in the aftermath underlines the Congress crisis and syndrome. But this election has also pointed to something far more important than the question of the Congress’s rise or fall: For the first time in decades, the ruling coalition in Bihar will not have an MLA belonging to the state’s largest minority. Going ahead, the absence of a Muslim representative in the new Bihar government must worry all those who have stakes in an inclusive democracy.
