Nitish Kumar, the 69-year-old leader, is going to swear-in as the CM of Bihar for the 7th time; a new record, indeed! However, this term is going to be very different for Kumar than the last ones when he used to be in the driving seat. For the first time, BJP is the senior partner in the alliance with 74 seats while JD(U) has become the second fiddle with only 43 seats. VIP and HAM, which got seats from the BJP and JD(U) quota respectively, have 4 seats each.
With 125 seats, the NDA got the majority and decided that Nitish Kumar would remain the Chief Minister of the state. However, signifying a change in the top leadership, the party removed Sushil Modi from the post of Deputy CM and introduced two new leaders- Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi- for the same post.
Apart from CM and two Deputy CMs, 12 other ministers would take oath in the cabinet. As per the media reports, Vijendra Yadav, Vijay Choudhary, Ashok Choudhary, Mewalal Choudhary, and Sheela Mandal from Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United and BJP leaders Mangal Pandey and Rampreet Paswan are among the 14 ministers being inducted in Nitish Kumar’s new cabinet today. Santosh Manjhi of the Hindustani Awam Morcha or the HAM and Mukesh Mallah of the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) will also be sworn in.
The latest changes show that Nitish Kumar will only be titular CM as the saffron party has already removed his yes man- Sushil Modi- who was more loyal to the JD(U) leader than BJP. Also, the new ministerial combination suggests that BJP wants to gobble up JD(U) slowly and bring its vote bank under the party umbrella.
The introduction of Renu Devi who comes Extremely Backward Caste (EBC) shows that BJP is eying JD(U)’s EBC vote bank which started voting for the party since Nitish Kumar gave them a separate quota out of OBCs 27 per cent. Also, Tara Kishore Prasad, who comes from Kalwar caste, has been introduced to keep the Vaishya vote bank of BJP intact and Mangal Pandey fulfils the representation of other upper castes. Rampreet Paswan and Mukesh Mallah are being introduced to consolidate the Dalit and Mahadalit vote bank. And, the saffron party played a masterstroke by introducing Renu Devi as it wants to target women voters who voted for JD(U) in large numbers and saved the party.
Nitish Kumar’s alcohol ban and Aajivika has been quite popular among the women voters of Bihar and now BJP wants to bring them under the party umbrella in order to ensure than all the caste and communities that were voting for JD(U) so far votes to the saffron party in the next assembly election.
So, in short, with the constitution of this cabinet, the obituary of the JD(U) has already been written as the party has no tall leader who could take the organization forward except Nitish Kumar. All that BJP wants is a smooth transfer of JD(U) votes to BJP by the next election. Probably BJP will force Nitish Kumar to take early retirement- after half term- and bring JD(U) under the saffron umbrella. So, Bihar will probably get a BJP CM even before 69-year-old Nitish Kumar’s term ends.
