Kanhaiya is the new emerging red star on the Indian spectrum. His sharing of stage with eminent social and political personalities has completely transferred his political image. He has now emerged as an established political leader with his own mass base. Social and cultural activists from across country had converged in Patna on Thursday to lend their support to a massive rally that marked the conclusion of Kumar's Jan Gan Man Yatra across Bihar to galvanise public opinion against CAA-NPR-NRC.

Medha Patkar, Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Tushar Gandhi and former IAS officer Kannan Gopinathan, who gave up his career at a young age in protest against abrogation of Article 370, sharing the stage with Kanhaiya, made a major difference. It sent the clear and loud message that it was a congregation with a difference.

Congress MLA Shakil Ahmed Khan, a former president of JNU students'' union who accompanied Kanhaiya during his tour that commenced at Champaran on January 30, Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary, along with leaders of state units of CPI and CPI(M) also addressed the rally held at Gandhi Maidan.

Significantly professional political rhetoric was absent at the rally. The entire backdrop provided a candid image that Kanhaiya was not willing to the footsteps of the professional politicians instead he has already charted out his own independent path.

In fact this independent path is a major challenge to the political establishment and politicians of Bihar. He frequently used of the term "azadi" (freedom) which is a pariah for saffron brigade. They hate this word as for the it smells of secession. But for Kanhaiya its contour is quite wide He said, "We must talk about the virtues of azadi here since today happens to be the day when legendary revolutionary Chandrashekhar Azad had given up his life fighting the British."

Little doubt Knhaiya’s rally has unnerved the JD(U) boss Nitish Kumar as well his ally BJP and also the RJD. If the intelligence sources are to be relied the Delhi’s top bosses have been seeking complete details of the rally; who were the participants, the areas from where the people came in large number, the mood of the people and their profile, their response to the address of Kanhaiya. Kanhaiya’s political clout is sure to go up when the court battle starts on his sedition case which has just been cleared by the Delhi Government. The young leader is expected to project himself nationally by making use of the proceedings. All indications suggest that he will be cleared since he did not anything seditious in his speech at JNU.

Kanhaiya in fact was right in his assertion that the rally organised under the banner of ‘NPR-NRC-CAA Virohi Morcha’, would shake the Centre and state government and compel them to rethink on implementation of NPR and CAA. It was really interesting to watch that leaders nursing diagonally opposite ideology shared and endorsed the perception of Kanhaiya. They virtually validated his observation; “My rally is based on morality and it has nothing to do with politics. We may have different political ideologies, but we will come together in our fight to protect the Constitution”.

In a caste conscious state Bihar it would be premature to predict that this new combination of citizens would pull down Nitish’s empire. But one thing is certain that it would shake the dormant consciousness of the people. Nitish Kumar bringing a bill against NRC in the Bihar assembly is an indication of this transformatory move. What has been most intriguing is the BJP supporting Nitish’s move even at the risk of antagonising their leaders Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, who consistently emphasize that these would be implemented at any cost.

Nevertheless this change in stance of Bihar BJP is also being interpreted by some political experts as an indication of softening of stance of the Central BJP leaders. It is said that they have been watching the public response to the changed attitude of the party in Bihar and may bring out some changes in the backdrop of the recent mayhem that took place in Delhi.

In fact Prashant Kishor’s parting of ways has completely shaken the trust level of Nitish. Though until a couple of weeks the JDU-BJP-LJP alliance was confident of a comeback riding on the goodwill and popularity of Nitish Kumar but now they have resigned to their fate. Pressure are being made on Nitish to call back Kishor. The argument being forwarded that Nitish has opposed NRC and NPR as desired by him.

The entry of Kanhaiya Kumar and Prashant Kishor opens up a new window to look through in Bihar election. Kanhaiya Kumar is establishing connect with the masses while Prashant Kishor just announced his aim of building an organisation of 1 crore people by June this year. He announced 'Baat Bihar Ki' agenda to reach out to each of over 45,000 villages which will be voting for 8,406 panchayats later this year.

The transformation of the political scenario has been so swift and pronounced that even RJD leader Tejashvi is contemplating to amend his relation with Nitish Kumar, who he had derided most in the past. An unusual collaboration between Nitish Kumar and the Tejashwi Yadav-led opposition saw an unanimous Bihar assembly resolution urging the centre to make changes to the NPR and NRC. After the debate, Tejashwi and his party leaders met Nitish in his chamber.

Tejashvi is already transforming his party. Making a shift in its social philosophy, he has floated the A-Z principle encompassing every section of society with the view to get an image makeover and become acceptable to all sections of society. He is also striving to bring back its lost base among the EBCs and Dalits. Similarly, to lure the upper castes especially the Rajputs and Bhumihars, the RJD has made former minister Jagdanand Singh, a Rajput, its state president and inducted Anil Shankar Singh, a Bhumihar and the great grandson of Bihar’s first chief minister Shri Krishna Singh, into the party fold as general secretary.

Conscious of these manoeuvres of the political parties and their leaders, Kanhaiya has been planning to spread the base of his movement. He urged that “we must not allow our movement to fizzle out and draw inspiration from Gandhi's model of civil disobedience when the NPR exercise gets underway" and asked the villagers to ask their panchayat heads to ensure that no NPR official is allowed to come knocking in their areas of jurisdiction when NPR is scheduled to be undertaken in May". (IPA Service)