Its been nearly a month since the results of the Bihar assembly elections came in. In the one long month since — Bihar has shown that the state doesn’t need elections to be politically charged up. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar into his fourth tenure has started making splashes in and around to rejig the pieces of his political spectrum that have been hammered into pieces and hurtled across the virgin universe by BJP. RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha met Nitish Kumar last week and the speculations are abuzz ever since then that Kumar is looking to find his crutches in Kushwaha.
“There is a possibility of new political equations in Bihar after both the leaders met on Thursday. We have no regimen with NDA. UpendraKushwaha and CM Nitish Kumar worked together in the past and if NDA government will work on the line of social justice and welfare of the people of Bihar, we will go with it,” saidBhola Sharma, official spokesperson of RLSP to IANS.
Nitish Kumar wants to gain lost ground through Kushwaha. Sources have said that he could be elected as MLC on the JDU quota and also get a ministerial birth.
Kumar has had a rough patch leading up to his coronation as the state Chief Minister. His party JDU came third in the elections behind RJD and BJP. The saffron party engineered a coup where JDU was brought down from its high horse of arrogance and put under the thumb by Union Minister Amit Shah. Immediately after, Kumar’s trusted lieutenant for years, Sushil Kumar Modi was pulled out of the state and parcelled to New Delhi to the Rajya Sabha so that the access of convenience these two leaders had forged amongst themselves could be broken. Renu Devi and Tarkishore Prasad were drafted by BJP as the deputy CM’s and Kumar could do nothing but accept the new developments with a clenched fist.
Read: The sacking of Sushil Modi is the best thing to happen to Bihar in a long time
For the large part of its existence, Bihar elections have been decided by three major castes viz. Yadavs, Kurmi, and Kushwaha’s (Koeri). Nitish Kumar during one of his political rallies in the late ’90s amongst the members of Kushwaha and Kurmi had coined the term Luv-Kush, which laid the foundation of his political vote bank and consolidated his position in front of Lalu Prasad Yadav who was solely relying on the Yadav vote bank.
UpendraKushwaha, once the closest side of Nitish Kumar, had entered electoral politics in 2000 by winning Jandaha seat. He was the leader of Opposition when Samata Party merged with the JD(U) and emerged as the largest opposition party in 2004. However, he was expelled from the party in 2007 and floated RashtriyaSamata Party in 2009. He again made a comeback to JDU and was made a Rajya Sabha MP. In 2013, he again left JDU and floated RashtriyaLokSamata Party (RLSP).
In the 2014 General elections, RLSP won three seats whilst contesting under the umbrella of NDA and as a result, Kushwaha was made Union minister of state in the Human Resource Development Ministry. However, with the entry of JDU into NDA’s fold once again, RLSP and Kushwaha got sidelined. In 2019, RLSP broke up with NDA and joined the Mahagathbandhan alliance in 2019. That couldn’t last long either as RLSP defected and joined hands with AIMIM and BSP to form a coalition to fight the 2020 assembly elections.
Read: After exit from NDA, UpendraKushwaha’s RLSP faces rebellion
While RLSP couldn’t even open its account, AIMIM managed to snaffle up 5 seats whereas BSP somehow managed to eek out a solitary seat as well. Sensing his future political lineage wrapped in existential crisis, Kushwaha wants to go back to the tried and tested Luv Kush formula that served both Nitish and him well, over the years.
The old Turk Kumar has also seen his vote bank of Kurmi and Kushwahadeterorate in this election. Only one Kushwaha candidate could enter the Vidhan Sabha for JDU this election. MewalalChoudhary, who could have been Nitish Kumar’s best bet to reignite his connection to the community was quickly taken out of the attack by BJP after allegations of corruption came out. And thus, Nitish Kumar who has already seen his allies wither away was once again left alone and in the lurch. Thus, UpendraKushwaha seems like a last-ditch effort for him to rekindle his hold over the Bihar political landscape.
Nitish Kumar can try all his want to reinvent the wheel but the truth has been laid bare in the election results that JDU and Kumar have been deemed inconsequential by the voters. And 2025 could very well be the last summer that Nitish Kumar sees in his CM chair as a long-drawn, illustrious yet dragged career comes to an end.