The compulsion to ensure the defeat of Nitish Kumar and the seven party Mahagathbandhan led by him, has conjured the Chanakya Amit Shah to replace the incumbent Bihar party chief Sanjay Jaiswal by Samrat Choudhary, a turncoat. The only reflection has been to break the Luv-Kush combination of Nitish. Choudhary is a Kushwaha, but the fact remains that he is yet to attain the status of being the leaders of Kushwaha, an OBC caste. Incidentally BJP has many Kushwaha leaders, but they do not command that nature of respect and dignity which Nitish enjoys.

Twenty five years ago, it was the BJP, which had raised a massive hue and cry against his appointment as a minister in the Rabri Devi cabinet in 1999, and had demanded his removal on charges of ‘forgery’. Chaudhary is now BJP MLC and leader of the party in the Legislative Council. The then Bihar Governor Suraj Bhan based on the basis of a probe report had directed the state government to lodge a case of fraud, forgery and misrepresentation against Chaudhary and sought recovery of salaries and allowances paid to him as minister.

Primary reason for installing him as the state chief is he is known for his loud voice and aggressiveness. BJP does not need a suave and intelligent leader to counter the combination of Nitish and Tejashvi. These two leaders have their mass appeal of being decent and suave. The task of Samrat is to win his caste men, he is also to perform rope trick for the upper caste people, who are basically against the harijans and Dalits.

One development is also significant. The BJP did not choose a Yadav leader to replace Sanjay Jaiswal, a bania by caste. In BJP’s perception, Yadavs cannot be the friends of BJP especially in Bihar. The same is the case with Yadavs of Uttar Pradesh. With his ambivalent stand towards BJP, it is an irony that a section of the Yadavs are feeling frustrated with Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh. Some UP BJP leaders feel that the current style of operation of Akhilesh may alienate a section of the Yadavs and they switch their loyalty to Congress.

Choudhary is the choice of Amit Shah who intends to kill two birds with one stone. While he would work to break the Luv-Kush combination in Bihar his fixing as the Bihar chief would prevail upon the Kushwahas of UP not to shift their loyalty to Nitish. In recent months Nitish has been trying to woo the Kushwahas and also had the invitation from them to contest for Lok Sabha from UP, especially from Fatehpur. To boost Choudhary’s political stature, he is also being projected as the CM candidate in the 2025 Bihar Assembly polls. The Kushwahas (koeri) is the largest social group after yadavs in Bihar.

Yet another factor that favoured Samrat to get the office of the party chief has been he has in recent months emerged as a face of the party's Hindutva politics. The BJP leadership intends to use the Hindutva and also regionalism to the maximum in Bihar. This is also evident in eulogising Manish Kashyap as the new face of the angry Bihari youth.

Four days back Bihar Police arrested YouTuber Manish Kashyap in the case of the ‘fake videos’ of attacks on migrant workers from the state in Tamil Nadu. Ironically in spite of deploying large number of personnel, the Bihar police could not arrest him. He on his own surrendered at the Jagdishpur Police Station in Bihar. Also known as Tripurari Kumar Tiwari, he has been having close contacts with some of the Bihar BJP leaders. Interestingly in protest of his arrest, most of the districts in Bihar witnessed bandh and strike. High sources maintain that some state BJP leaders have helped to organise the strike.

His eluding the arrest has raised eye brows in political circle and is being viewed with scepticism. It is alleged that of late, precisely after his parting of ways with BJP, a section of the police officials and sepoys were not taking his instructions seriously while they have been quite responsive to the instructions from the BJP leaders. This is viewed as Nitish weakening his grip on the state police. This is yet another reason that law and order has once again showing disturbing trend.

Manish had tweeted a ‘fake video’ of the attacks on migrant workers from Bihar in Tamil Nadu which had forced many labourers to flee back to Bihar. Even the police had confessed “The whole idea behind making a video in Patna was to mislead the police of Bihar and Tamil Nadu”. His surrendering before the police is cited as the collusion of a section of the police with him.

After severing relation with the BJP, Nitish had emphasised to unite the opposition parties. But it appears that he has lost his track, Except his recent rhetoric at the CPI(ML) Congress, he has preferred to, maintain silence. This has been adding to many wild speculations of his future moves. It was expected that he and Akhilesh would jointly launch the mission. But it appears that while Akhilesh is not at all serious and except for some hobnobbing with TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, he has withdrawn, Nitish is also waiting for the Congress initiative. True enough the open unambiguous support to Congress, especially to Rahul, has put Nitish in a tight spot.

As political parties look to the 2024 general election, most of them found them faced with the same nature of crisis that they faced before the present era of BJP dominance. Both Nitish and Akhilesh are aware that BJP defeat in Hindi heartland is imperative for its ouster from power at Delhi. Unfortunately for Akhilesh his 2017 alliance experience is so vexed for him that he is forced to behave in a peculiar manner. He has virtually given up the concept of alliance politics.

How could the opposition leaders of UP and Bihar forget that during the last nine years, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has established itself as the dominant player in Indian politics. It is the absolute failure of the opposition leaders to evolve a well-defined strategy and their reluctance to keep aside their hurt feelings and nurse their egos, that have helped the BJP.

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the political heartland of India and contribute 120 out of the 543 seats of Parliament. These two states witnessed emergence of Mandal politics. Bihar could check the emergence of Kamandal politics, but UP facilitated it to grow and prosper. In recent years the Samajwadi Party has been receiving drubbings at the hands of BJP. But Akhilesh instead of trying to analyse and find out the real reason has been blaming the allies, some time Congress and others and time BSP for the defeat.

It is worth mentioning that at the 11 th Congress of the CPI(ML) the leaders from other parties and intellectuals had emphasised: “There is an urgent need for all the like-minded political parties to be united to defeat the fascist forces.” People of the country are looking towards Bihar and Uttar Pradesh with lots of hope. Bihar has shown the positive move, but Uttar Pradesh is yet to take the initiative. (IPA Service)