Behind Nitish Kumar’s Tejashwi ‘ekdum karega’ remark: ‘Merger 2023’, Mission 2024, CM chair till 2025

Nitish knows that he may not be the MGB’s face in the 2025 polls, when he turns 74 and would have completed 20 years as the Bihar CM. Spearheading the RJD-led alliance in the 2020 polls, Tejashwi had taken his grouping get close to power as it got 110 seats, just 12 short of a simple majority.

Tejashwi has since further established his position within the RJD, with party veterans like state party president Jagdanand Singh, Shivanand Tiwari, Abdul Bari Siddiqui and Ramchandra Purve acknowledging his leadership. Even his elder brother and ex-dissident leader Tej Pratap Yadav seems to have reconciled to his brother’s leadership.

Nitish has sensed that there has been some unease in the RJD, especially after the MGB’s candidate for the Kurhani bypoll, Manoj Kumar Kushwaha, a JD (U) leader, failed to retain the seat despite Nitish campaigning for him. The RJD has also been concerned over its previous Gopalganj by-election loss to the BJP besides the narrow margin of its win in the Mokama bypoll.

These results put a question mark on Nitish’s claims of the “seven-party” MGB being a “clear winner” in the polls against the BJP, which currently does not have any ally. Another crucial question remains whether the social arithmetic of the seven-party alliance has been coming through as expected. When RJD chief Lalu Prasad and Nitish had joined hands for the 2015 polls, their alliance got 178 of 243 seats.

By projecting Tejashwi as the MGB’s face for the 2025 polls, Nitish moved to ward off all uncomfortable questions arising from within the alliance. It has pleased the RJD, but the point remains that Nitish has not said he would let Tejashwi assume his CM chair before the next polls. Nitish has also been constantly under the Opposition attack now over various law and order issues and the “poor implementation” of the liquor prohibition law in the state.

At the MGB’s Tuesday meet, Nitish also claimed he was not in the race for the PM’s post, even as he stressed on the need for greater Opposition unity to defeat the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. His party colleagues have been talking about “Mission Nitish 2024”, putting up hoardings in Patna stating that the country needs Nitish.

While harbouring his prime ministerial ambition, Nitish knows the limits of the JD(U)’s footprint with regard to the 2024 general elections. There has been talks of a possible RJD-JD (U) merger for sometime, with neither side confirming or denying it. But Nitish may well be thinking of 2023 for its possible timeline. If the two parties merge and Nitish is made its national president, he would lead a big party which along with its MGB allies may aim to get over 30 out of 40 Bihar Lok Sabha seats. The NDA had won 39 seats in the 2019 polls. So Nitish might be more than ready for merger if the RJD concedes the merged outfit’s presidential chair to him, probably in lieu of the CM’s post for Tejashwi. There might be hiccups from the RJD camp, but Nitish would still be the best candidate to lead such a party.

Reacting sharply to the possibility of the RJD-JD (U) merger, JD (U) parliamentary board chairperson Upendra Kushwaha said Wednesday that the “merger was not a good idea”. More dissenting voices might emanate later.

Several JD (U) leaders know that the party would “sink or sail” with Nitish as the CM has not ensured a second-rung leadership like Lalu or the late Ram Vilas Paswan, who promoted their sons for the purpose. The unravelling of the party could begin once Nitish takes the merger step. Those who are close to Nitish, such as party president Lalan Singh and ministers Vijay Kumar Choudhary, Shravan Kumar and Ashok Choudhary, could stand by Nitish but scores of second-line leaders would assess their future prospects with some of them switching to the BJP.

Nitish has had an upper hand over the BJP in Bihar politics over the last two decades. With the possible exception of former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, the BJP has perhaps not been able to throw up any leader who could match up to the JD(U) supremo. If Nitish is no longer in saddle, the state’s politics would become a bipolar affair that might turn out to be “advantage BJP”.