BJP’S Push to move away from Nitish loses steam
Giriraj has been asked to exercise restraint while commenting on Nitish.
With Union minister Giriraj Singh being asked by the central leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party to speak carefully while commenting on Bihar in general and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in particular, the push that was being exerted by a section of Bihar-based BJP leaders towards moving away from the Janata Dal United (JDU), seems to have lost steam.
Bihar BJP leaders, including Giriraj Singh, C.P. Thakur, Sanjay Paswan, and Mithilesh Tiwari, had become very vocal in the last couple of months while stating, rather indirectly, that the time had come for the BJP to fight alone, without the support of the JDU in Bihar where the Assembly elections are slated for November next year. This demand became more aggressive following the 27 September Patna floods that had brought to the fore the “mal-administration” on the part of the Nitish-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government as it was blamed for not even being able to build proper drainage system in the state capital despite being in power for more than 15 years. The BJP leaders had also come out in the open and said that state bureaucrats were not listening to them.
Following the Patna floods, a very prominent section of state leaders had started, in what can be called a vocal campaign, to dissociate the BJP from the JDU. Lok Sabha MPS from the state, including Giriraj Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ram Kripal Yadav, Sanjay Jaiswal (who is also the state BJP president), had gone on record to state that Patna was flooded because of lapse on the part of the state machinery and bureaucrats. Jaiswal, in a very detailed post on his Facebook page, had announced that he will make sure that the officers responsible for the situation in Patna are held accountable. Singh had even sought forgiveness from the people of Patna for the situation.
However, all this aggressive stand has now been put on the back seat after Singh was told by working party president Jagat Prakash Nadda earlier this week to exercise restraint while commenting on the Bihar government.
The result of the rebuke was visible as Singh, who is an avid user of Twitter and uses the medium to attack the Nitish-led state government, has gone on a silent mode and has not tweeted anything on Bihar after 5 October when he had last re-tweeted a news about how the master plan related to Patna drainage system had gone missing. JDU general secretary and Nitish Kumar’s man in Delhi, K.C. Tyagi, too, on Wednesday, stated that the “issue” was over now, signaling the end of this chapter, for now at least. Confirming the development, a BJP minister in the Nitish Cabinet said that Giriraj was asked by Nadda not to speak “out” in a way that would damage the NDA coalition in Bihar. Another Bihar BJP leader, who is a part of the Nitish Cabinet, confirmed to The Sunday Guardian that even state party president Sanjay Jaiswal, earlier this week, was asked to speak “carefully” (to put it mildly) when commenting on the Nitish government by senior party leader Sushil Kumar Modi, who is also the deputy Chief Minister of the state.
Patna-based political observers say that with no Opposition in sight in the state, Nitish Kumar was still in a strong position. A Patnabased journalist said: “Who will criticise him? The RJD and the Congress could not even come out on the ground when Patna was flooded, in the way they should have, to make this a political issue. As for the BJP, it, too, has realised that relevant ministries like Urban development and Health have been with the BJP for these 15 years. If the BJP decides to attack Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister will tell everyone that these departments and ministries were with the BJP all these years. The BJP, apart from the section that has been speaking out against Nitish Kumar, believes that it cannot do well in Bihar without Kumar’s support and hence they are not coming out unitedly to attack him.”
However, some believe that the attack on Nitish Kumar by “Singh and company” was a part of BJP’S game plan to emerge as the big brother in the state and use this leverage to seek more seats, on the lines of what happened in Maharashtra, when the seat distribution for the forthcoming Assembly elections are discussed. “The BJP wants to give a message to Nitish Kumar, through ‘Singh and company’, that it was also open to ditch him if things do not work out during the ticket distribution,” said another journalist.
When party MLC and former Union minister Sanjay Paswan had ignited this whole “BJP should go alone” debate last month while stating that Nitish Kumar should leave the CM’S chair for the BJP, he was also later asked by a section of the state BJP leadership not to “attack” Nitish Kumar. However, he has so far refused to take a backseat even as the other leaders have backed down from attacking Kumar. “The state BJP is divided over whether to stick with Nitish Kumar or leave him. The party’s most prominent face in the state, Sushil Kumar Modi, has never stood with those who have been attacking Nitish Kumar, a stand which percolates down to the party cadre. Even Sanjay Jaiswal was recently asked to exercise restraint by Modi. Unless and until Sushil Modi comes out in the open and speaks against Nitish Kumar, the rest of the statements by other leaders should not be taken seriously,” the minister quoted above said.