Nitish Kumar may not be a popular or charismatic leader but there is no doubt that he is a shrewd politician and this is the reason that he survived as the CM of a state with very complex political equations for more than one and a half-decades.
In the last Bihar assembly election, the Chirag Paswan-led LJP played spoilsport as a result of which JD(U) lost many seats and the party was reduced to a junior partner in the Bihar NDA for the first time in 15 years. Though Nitish Kumar became the Chief Minister, many important portfolios went to BJP and he even lost his close aide and former Deputy CM Sushil Modi – whom the party replaced with two Deputy CMs.
Nitish Kumar avenged Chirag Paswan by orchestrating a rebellion in LJP which resulted in the loss of all MPs, and possibly even the party. Now Kumar is planning to push BJP on the backfoot as his party has announced that it will contest on 200 seats in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh election if an alliance is not formed.
The senior JD(U) leader said that he made a call to UP CM Yogi Adityanath, expressing the desire to have an alliance but he has not responded to the call yet. Therefore, the party will contest the elections alone and would focus on Purvanchal (adjoining to Bihar) and Rohilkhand where there is a significant Kumi-Koeri population, which has traditionally voted for JD(U).
“Janata Dal-United has decided to fight the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections set to be held in 2022 alone, separate from the BJP. The decision was taken unanimously by the national committee of the Janata Dal-United,” JD(U)’s general secretary KC Tyagi told NDTV.
“In 2017, we did not contest in UP. This damaged the party quite a bit. Our party’s national committee has unanimously decided that UP is a state connected with Bihar where our government policies have been well publicised. So, we should contest the assembly elections in UP alone in 2022,” Tyagi said, adding he had been made in charge of the campaign.
Although the entry of JD(U) would not make much difference to BJP’s prospects, given the fact Yogi Adityanath remains the most popular leader in the country as well as in Uttar Pradesh after PM Modi, but it shows the shrewd political and negotiation skills of Nitish Kumar. The primary aim of Kumar is to get a better bargain in the future cabinet expansion because he knows very well that his party will not win a single seat in Uttar Pradesh but it may play spoilsport on a few.
In 2017 Assembly polls, BJP managed to receive a gigantic mandate by securing a 41.4 percent vote share, which translated to the BJP winning 325 seats in a 403-member state assembly. Nobody had anticipated such a huge wave of Yogi Adityanath in the state and the opposition and detractors were left dumbfounded at the magnitude of the victory.
Fast forward four years, Yogi has become the tallest leader in the country. From developing UP into an industrial state to reducing crime to tackling the first and second wave of the coronavirus pandemic effectively, UP has grown strength to strength with Yogi at the helm.
As reported by TFI, according to an ABP-C Voter survey conducted in March earlier this year, if elections were to held now, BJP would storm into power once again. The BJP is projected to win 289 seats in the 403-seat Uttar Pradesh Assembly. Meanwhile, SP is projected to be the second-largest party with 59 seats followed by BSP with 38 seats but not posing any real challenge to the BJP.
Thus, it is evident that BJP is coming back to power in the state, but it needs to take Nitish Kumar out of the equation in Bihar as soon as possible, otherwise, he will keep eying the CM chair for another few decades.