What are the strengths of Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar? Is he a good orator? Oh! He is barely audible. Are his social engineering skills extremely good? Obviously not, his social engineering has carved out a subcategory in an already existing vulnerable category-Dalits. Well, Nitish Kumar might have an image of a ‘progressive-man’, but if it was so, then he had not been decimated in the last Lok Sabha and assembly elections. Nitish Kumar excels in just one thing and that is political opportunism and RCP Singh is the latest victim of the same.
Nitish Kumar denies RCP Singh another Rajya Sabha term
RCP Singh, the second in command in Janata Dal (United) and this bureaucrat turned politician has been denied another Rajya Sabha term by party patriarch Nitish Kumar. Earlier, JD(U) MLAs had authorised Nitish Kumar to take a decision related to Rajya Sabha nominations. Now, he has nominated JD(U)’s Jharkhand unit president Kheeru Mahto for the seat.
RCP Singh was the lone minister from JD(U) in the union cabinet, Union Minister of Steel, and his term expires on July 6. As he has not been nominated, he will have 6 months to get re-elected in the Upper House of the Parliament, else he will have to resign. There may be another possibility if RCP Singh convinces the BJP to secure his term.
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Surprisingly, both hail from the same caste group ‘Kurmi’ so there is no caste equation applicable here and its simple Nitish Kumar’s politics; the politics filled with opportunism.
Nitish Kumar and his political ‘skills’
Nitish Kumar has been in the chair for three tenures now. He has managed to keep the CM chair with him for one and a half-decade despite several challenges, one of them being unpopularity. How an unpopular CM managed to stay afloat in a politically vibrant state like Bihar, well it’s through timing and opportunism.
Nitish Kumar has no skills that can attract the masses and convert them into a loyal vote bank. He has not got mesmerising oratory skills. His metaphors are not well framed, nor he quotes any anecdotes, and he has got an extremely low voice.
Nitish Kumar lacks the basic requirement of being politically alive, backing of a numerically and socially strong community in the state. Nitish Kumar cannot even claim 100 per cent support of his community; the Kurmis.
Nitish Kumar fails at the social engineering front as well since he carved out a sub-caste from an already vulnerable caste group; the Dalits. Nitish Kumar’s equation includes 19 Dalit castes excluding Paswans, and he has named it as ‘Maha-Dalit’. He is not a leader with an image of a ‘progressive man’ and the thrashing JD(U) got in the general as well as assembly elections stands in deposition for the same.
Nitish Kumar: Personification of opportunism
Nitish Kumar is ruling the state from more than a decade despite having no leader like qualities only due to his opportunistic politics. And his journey in the political arena advocated for the same.
Nitish Kumar quietly joined NDA after being kicked out by Lalu Yadav in the nineties as his own political party Samata Party fell flat on its face. Kumar was also exposed after the Godhra Train Massacre and the Gujarat riots, when the morally high Nitish Kumar did not utter a single word.
Nitish Kumar joined the NDA alliance when he found it well and dumped the party when he found an option; Lalu’s RJD. He is a man who would go to any extent to soothe his ego or settle his scores. He is not someone who wishes to lead the party by example, rather he is someone who forces the second liners fall in line with his political tactics and RCP Singh’s case is not a lone incident, there lies a list of such names.
The not-so-famous victims of Nitish Kumar’s ‘politics’
The long list of people who have been shown their place by Nitish Kumar includes some political giants of their time like George Fernandes, Sharad Yadav, Digvijay Singh and Upendra Kushwaha among others. Many of the veterans have found themselves out of the party for picking an Anti-Nitish line.
The most-recent case is of MP Upendra Kushwaha. He parted ways from JD(U) in 2007 and faced Kumar’s ire for the same. He joined back JD(U) in 2009 only to quit again in 2013 and float his own party. However, after the failure of his own party he returned to Kumar’s fold and received humiliation for the same.
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The second case being in view is of George Fernandes’. He was Kumar’s political mentor. Nitish Kumar denied ticket to Fernandes from a constituency in 2009, which he had won from jail in 1977.
Next name in the list is of Sharad Yadav, who introduced Kumar to the political ‘icon’ of Bihar, once a political stalwart Karpoori Thakur. His relationship with Kumar deteriorated after Yadav decided to return to the NDA in 2017.
The ticket denied to RCP Singh also falls under the same category, as media reports suggest that Singh’s proximity with the BJP cost him his Rajya Sabha seat. Singh is also guilty of diluting party’s stand on crucial issues like CAA-NRC and special status for Bihar among other.
Nitish Kumar is an over celebrated underperforming opportunist whose weight is being carried on by the Bhartiya Janata Party. Kumar’s political opportunism knows no boundaries. Taking lesson from the RCP Singh case, the BJP must prepare for a new front in the state with credible faces on which the party can rely.