Nitish playing a game for Delhi gaddi

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is proving to be a veritable enigma. He is apparently looking to stake his claim for the coveted prime ministerial chair in 2019 and is playing his cards accordingly. While he cosied up to the Prime Minister at a recent event in Patna and then even broke bread when Modi invited him for a dinner at which the Mauritius Prime Minister was the key guest, he set the political gossip mills aflutter when he participated with other opposition leaders in the birthday celebrations of octogenarian DMK supremo Karunanidhi in Chennai and then criticised the BJP leadership for ignoring the interests of farmers across the country. Yet, Nitish has kept a distance from Congress vicepresident Rahul Gandhi, keeping away from meetings hosted by the Congress bigwigs Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. That he is up against the formidable Narendra Modi whose popularity ratings continue to rule high is a dampener but he is clearly testing the waters.

This reminds one of the late Arjun Singh who tried to be too clever but fell flat as his game was seen through. Nitish is intrinsically clever but it is unlikely that he would get the better of Modi in any battle for the crown. He wants to keep the BJP and the opposition guessing, sending out conflicting signals to confuse the parties and principal players. He would like to be propped up as the joint opposition candidate in the Lok Sabha elections but is not averse to being wooed by the BJP with a lucrative offer like that of deputy prime minister after the 2019 polls. Nitish’s pluses are that he, in conjunction with Lalu Prasad Yadav, gave the BJP a sound drubbing in the last Assembly elections and he is rated highly for the way he has been running the difficult state of Bihar. He is relatively honest as a politician. He is not alien to ruling at the Centre, having been a minister for many years. He may not say so but he holds Rahul Gandhi in contempt and sees himself as a prize catch for the combined opposition.

Towards the BJP, Nitish’s signals are confusing. He walked out of an alliance with the saffron party because it chose Modi as prime ministerial candidate in 2014 and has been blowing hot and cold alternately with the Modi dispensation. He caused many eyebrows to rise when he supported demonetisation when other opposition parties were extremely critical of it. Close on the heels of his attending Karunanidhi’s birthday celebrations, he recently dared the BJP to not only hold fresh Assembly elections in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh simultaneously, but also byelections to the Lok Sabha seats held by NDA members in both the States. Mr. Kumar blamed the Central government for the farmers’ protests in different parts of the country. Addressing the media on the sidelines of his weekly Lok Samvad programme recently, Nitish said there would be more crisis in the agricultural sector in coming days. “Farmers are in a bad state today but the Central government is indifferent to them,” charged Nitish. Indeed, Nitish is playing to an ambitious plan but the chances of his plans succeeding are remote indeed.