Saffron vilification campaign launched by the saffron ecosystem against Nitish for last one month is quite venomous and meant to completely destroy his image and political career. But RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and his protégé are mistaken. Nitish is not Modi. While Modi’s political actions follow the RSS brief, Nitish writes his own script and assiduously follows it. A month back Amit Shah had chastised Nitish at a public meeting in Bihar and told his cadres that Nitish was an untouchable for BJP and the gates of the party were closed for him. But just from the next day of Shah declaring him as pariah, BJP’s state leaders started telling the people of the state that Nitish would severe his relation with RJD and join the NDA.

During this period a new rumour started making the round that Nitish was under pressure from Lalu Yadav to quit and make room for his son Tejashvi Yadav. As if this was not enough to shake his trust, senior BJP leaders tossed a completely nasty sneer that he is having some mental problem which was why he was making some eccentric comments. These nonsensical allegations were not attributed by some ordinary leaders. Instead, state level senior leaders were commenting.

The latest act has been most devious. Leaders like former deputy chief minister Sushil Mody, Union minister Giriraj Singh and president of the state unit Samrat Choudhary dug out the theory that Lalan Singh, trusted friend of Nitish for 40 years has been busy plotting against him. Lalan, chief of Bihar JD(U), has entered into a conspiracy with Lalu Yadav to split the JD(U) legislature party, remove Nitish and install Tejashvi as the chief minister. To give a shape to his plan Lalan had held a closed door meeting of some 12 JD(U) legislators. One of the participants, a lady legislator, however leaked it to Nitish. It was only after this disclosure Nitish decided to show Lalan the door.

Lalan incidentally has of late has emerged as the Bhumihar face in the political arena of the state. His own Lok Sabha constituency Munger has a significant number of Bhumihar voters. For some time even Tejashvi has been striving to win over the Bhumihars. The president of state Congress is also a Bhumihar. In this backdrop BJP is apprehensive of large scale desertion of Bhumihars to INDIA. BJP would be left content with the fragmented support of Rajputs, Brahmins and Kayasthas. Already OBC, EBC and a major section of Dalits are with RJD-JD(U) alliance.

No doubt removal of Lalan would have adverse impact on the Bhumihars of Bihar but if the senior leaders of JD(U) are to be relied it is not a big issue. Nitish taking the command of JD(U) would ensure that he would have a major say in the operation of INDIA bloc. He could influence and guide the activities of the INDIA. Lalan has not been a heavy weight politician. He does not command the respect which Nitish enjoys. Heading a party during a lean period do not require much assertion of political skill and determination. But the current situation needs a decisive intervention, which the party sources affirm was a difficult proposition for Lalan.

Apathy and disrespect of the Congress leaders, especially of Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, to Nitish, precisely ignoring his importance and even going to the extent of hijacking his credibility, has provided the right opportunity to the BJP to demean Nitish in the eyes of his own people. It is an open secret that JD(U) leaders were quite angry with Rahul for his uncaring attitude towards Nitish and Lalu at the recent Delhi meet of INDIA.

The Opposition INDIA bloc held a crucial meeting in Delhi on December 19 to discuss seat-sharing, joint campaign blueprint and chalking out a strategy to take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. It was expected that the meeting would designate Nitish as the convenor of INDIA, certainly not the PM candidate. It was he who had initiated the process of bringing opposition on a common platform. Leaders of even other constituents share this feeling.

Importantly a political resolution adopted at the JDU national executive described Nitish as the 'architect' of the INDIA combine, highlighted his leadership abilities and went ahead to urge “bigger parties in the alliance have more responsibility. To make this grand alliance successful, they will have to show a big heart.” It even hailed Nitish as “the hope of the backwards, extremely backwards, deprived sections, minorities and crores of unemployed youths”. It proceeded to state: “The BJP is rattled as the INDIA bloc has a leader like Nitish Kumar.”

“Rashtriya star par hamare kaamon ki utni charcha nahi hoti hai. Congress pehle karti thi, ab nahi karti hai,” (Nationally, the work we have done is not talked about. Congress used to do it earlier but not now), Nitish was quoted by party leaders as having said. Party leaders said that Nitish pointed out how at the Mumbai INDIA meeting it was decided to include the proposal of undertaking a caste-based census nationally on the lines of Bihar but was dropped from the resolution after some parties opposed it.

Amid the JD(U)'s perceived unhappiness with leading members of the INDIA bloc for not giving its most prominent leader a formal role in the alliance, the JD(U) leaders point out leaders like K Chandrashekhar Rao and others would have floated their third front damaging the future of INDIA, but it was for Nitish Kumar they dropped the move.

Party leaders confide that his replacing Lalan Singh in a move largely triggered by the Congress’s failure to project Nitish as the architect of the INDIA bloc. Though he had already made it public that he was not in the race for the office of prime minister, the minimum he however expected from the Congress was that he should be credited with the convenorship of the INDIA bloc.

His party leaders did not like the manner in which some of the Congress leaders were pushing their own agenda ignoring the voice of the other parties. Nitish is already on records to have pulled up the Congress leadership for not appreciating his move of enhancing the reservation from the existing 60 per cent to 75 per cent while Rahul has been emphasising on undertaking the task of caste census if INDIA bloc comes to power.

Nitish has been consistently emphasising on a coordinated effort to give a shape to the alliance so that it could win the trust of the people. Regrettably it was interpreted by the close aides of Rahul as his attempt to dominate the proceedings of INDIA alliance and project himself as the prime ministerial candidate. This averseness of Rahul and Kharge has disillusioned Nitish. It is not that BJP leadership was unaware of these happenings inside INDIA. Taking advantage of the situation they initiated the awful campaign to demean him.

Through his taking over the reins of his party, Nitish Kumar managed to send a sturdy message that he was the real Chanakya of contemporary Indian politics and Narendra Modi who had launched a psychological war against him will not succeed to defame him Taking back the reign of the JD(U) by Nitish will help INDIA bloc in fighting BJP more aggressively in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. (IPA Service)