The Nitish way: Eye on bigger INDIA prize, takes first step, returns as party chief

However, that’s where the similarities end. In 2016, Nitish stood tall having led the Mahagathbandhan, also comprising the RJD and Congress, to 178 seats out of 243 in the Bihar Assembly polls of December 2015. The BJP, which had stunned Nitish an year earlier in the Modi-wave 2014 Lok Sabha polls by getting 31 seats, fell to 53 Assembly seats from 91 earlier.

The victory was also sweeter for the fact that Nitish had broken away from the BJP to tie up with the Mahagathbandhan, in a literal rejection of Modi.

Now, Nitish no longer enjoys that moral authority. If his anti-Modi credentials lie in tatters after he swapped sides to the BJP again in 2017 – as the UPA’s graph, and his ambitions, took a beating – the weight of numbers too is no longer on his side. In the last Assembly elections of Bihar, the JD(U) got nearly half the seats of both the BJP and RJD.

That Nitish was able to effect a unanimous vote for him to return as JD(U) national president on Friday says more about the party, in which power has been getting concentrated in his hands – irrespective of who the national, or Delhi, face is.

Lalan Singh does not even have the kind of national presence like Sharad Yadav had, who eventually did rebel – to little effect – making it even more easy for Nitish to have his way.

Between Sharad Yadav and Lalan Singh, bureaucrat-politician R C P Singh served as JD(U) national president. But his tenure was short – December 2020 to July 2021 – with Singh choosing the BJP.

JD(U) state president Umesh Kushwaha made no bones about the role the party fancies for Nitish. “The country is passing through a tough political phase. Nitish Kumar taking the party reins has become imperative now. We all wanted him to take full control of the party,” Kushwaha said.

The move is also expected to quell simmering groupism within the party, with JD(U) leaders susceptible to both RJD and BJP pressures. Lalan himself was seen as having got unusually close to RJD chief Lalu Prasad and Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav in recent days.

However, given his precarious numbers, Nitish does not have as free a hand as before in deciding which way to turn. Many in the JD(U) are against any truck with the BJP again, and Nitish will have that in mind as the Mahagathbandhan could manage to continue without him with 114 seats in the House. Worse, any hints in this regard could cause the RJD to withdraw its generosity in letting Nitish continue as CM.

Lalan Singh, who is unlikely to be touched by the RJD in a hurry, is expected to lie low and focus on retaining his Munger Lok Sabha seat. Seen to be part of the camp that is anti-BJP, he can now think of making a move only if Nitish dumps the RJD again.

Lalan will also feel the isolation within the JD(U), with his resignation seen as partially a victory of senior party leaders Vijay Kumar Choudhary, Ashok Kumar Choudhary and Sanjay Kumar Jha.