Architect to deserter: Nitish Kumar’s changing equation with INDIA

For more than three months in early 2023, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar travelled across cities to bring together warring opposition outfits to cobble an alliance, something that has always helped Kumar stay afloat in his long career.

Kumar held meetings with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, met West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar and others in this effort, often accompanied by his deputy chief minister Tejaswi Yadav.

When the collective efforts reached the crucial stage of seat pacts, Kumar on Sunday dumped the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress and his Left allies to form a government with the Bharatiya Janata Party, lending a serious blow to the alliance’s prospects, especially in Bihar, the only Hindi-belt state where the INDIA allies were in power.

He has given the BJP an upper hand in the state that has 40 Lok Sabha seats, forced a realignment in politics of Bihar and left the opposition INDIA bloc fractured two months before the poll. With Banerjee pulling out of an alliance in West Bengal, the Aam Aadmi Party ruling out a pact in Punjab and Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) joining hands with the BJP, the opposition bloc will struggle to put up a united fight against the BJP.

“After the Congress’ electoral loss in the assembly elections in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, the success of the alliance in Bihar was even more important to give the BJP a fight in the Hindi belt,” a Congress leader involved in the discussions said, declining to be named. “The JD(U) and RJD were the first parties the Congress formally engaged for seat talks on January 7.”

“There is hardly any contest left for the 2024 Lok Sabha Election now. To me, the only interest left for 2024 is how many seats BJP and NDA (National Democratic Alliance) can add to its tally of 2019 and if Congress can even manage to hold on to its tally of 2014 LS,” Sanjay Kumar of think tank Centre for the Study of Developing Societies said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge compared Kumar to “aaya Ram gaya Ram”, a phrase used in political circles for leaders who frequently switch sides. That Kumar will leave the alliance was already known, Kharge said.

“There are many people like aaya Ram gaya Ram in the country. Earlier he and I were fighting together. When I talked to Lalu ji and Tejashwi ji, they also said that Nitish is going. If he wanted to stay, he would have stayed, but he wants to go. Therefore, we already knew this, but we did not say anything to keep the INDIA alliance intact. If we say something wrong, the wrong message will be sent. Lalu Prasad Yadav ji and Tejashwi Yadav ji had already given us this information. Today it became true,” Kharge said on X.

“I do what I say. JD(U) will be finished in 2024. The game has just started,” an angry Yadav said. “I believe that the people are with us and will support us.”

There were efforts to make Kumar convener of INDIA, which were thwarted by Trinamool Congress that now claims it was always unsure about his intentions. “Imagine if we made him the convener of the alliance. It would have been a loss of face for the INDIA group when he would have left us,” a Trinamool leader said, seeking anonymity.

Nearly eight months ago, on June 23 last year, Kumar was at the centre stage among the tallest leaders of 18 opposition parties. Their five-hour-long meeting at his Circular Road residence built the foundation of the biggest opposition bloc in the recent past.

In the next meeting at Bengaluru’s Taj West End, Kumar, a chief minister for over 13 years, made a vital intervention. When Banerjee proposed the name INDIA for the alliance with the full backing of the Congress, Kumar argued that the words National, Democratic and Alliance are also there in the BJP-led NDA.

In an hour-long discussion on the name of the alliance, the dominant allies refused to change the words National and Alliance but replaced Democratic with Developmental. The allies finally called themselves the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance. Overruled, a peeved Kumar didn’t stay back for the press conference and flew back to Patna with RJD chief Lalu Prasad in a chartered flight.

In nearly all meetings, Kumar pressed the allies to complete talks to share seats at the earliest and stuck to pro-people issues to counter the BJP. But on December 19, Banerjee and Kejriwal proposed Kharge’s name as the prime ministerial candidate and Kumar was left seething. Weeks later, in an online meeting of allies, Trinamool vetoed a move to make Kumar the convener.

The alliance, which banked on the unity of 28 parties to take on the mighty BJP nationally, will have to look for a fresh strategy. “The work is difficult. What happens in Bihar doesn’t remain only in Bihar. It impacts other states too,” a non-Congress leader said, wishing to remain unnamed.