Using this trait, he made five somersaults during the last 20 years and continued to occupy the chair of chief minister with no one daring to oppose him. He has become indispensable. Nitish claims to belong to the Ram Manohar Lohia school of politics like Lau Yadav, but there is much difference between the two. While Lalu exploited the caste contradictions, Nitish flourished using the politics of identity. These two may appear to be similar, their usage of the political perception was far apart. Lalu had the advantage of support of 16 per cent of the Yadav votes, Nitish caste base was quite fragile, with only 2,2 per cent of the Kori-Kumri population.

The compulsion to expand as a leader of Dalits and oppressed Nitish had entered into electoral alliance with the CPI(ML) in 1995. In that election CPI and CPI(M) had joined hands with Lalu. Nitish succeeded in his mission to identify with the poor and oppressed. It helped him build the image of pro-proletariat leader notwithstanding Nitish’s Samata Party had proved a total flop.

Nitish knew that like Lalu, he did not have a strong support base and for surviving in politics he would have to use his 2.2 support base to bargain. He exploited the political scenario to his advantage. He forged ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party to end the “jungle raj” of Lalu. Nitish was conscious of the fact that his pro-poor and Dalit image is not obliterated notwithstanding his shifting his loyalty between the socialists and ultra-rightist forces.

Nitish has been serving as the chief minister of Bihar since 22 February 2015, having previously held the office from 2005 to 2014 and for a short period in 2000. He is Bihar's longest serving chief minister holding the post for 20 years. True enough he had made his first somersault in1996. Only in 1995 he had joined hands with the ultra- leftist Naxalite outfit CPI(ML) for Bihar assembly election, but only a year after he joined hand with the rightist BJP. In 1996 he was elected to the Lok Sabha, and served as a Union Minister in the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, with his party joining the National Democratic Alliance. In 2003 his party merged into the JD(U) and he became its leader. In 2005, the NDA won a majority in the Bihar Legislative Assembly, and Kumar became chief minister with the help of BJP.

His somersaults have been quite frustrating and nerve testing for the BJP as well as RJD leadership. He exploited the monkey and cat like situation, where monkey tricked the breads of the two fighting cats, to his advantage to continue as chief minister. He tried to consolidate his type of identify politics while running the Mahagathbandhan government in alliance with RJD and left parties. But eventually it did not appear to work. Bihar remains a formidable ground for identity politics; the state deeply mired in feudal and reactionary atrocities, has witnessed a long stretch of lawlessness.

The BJP is now no more willing to trust him and made him the chief minister after the 2025 assembly elections. The 2025 assembly election is going to provide significant opportunity for the BJP to grow and expand in the Hindi heartland. This time BJP is unwilling to present to him as the NDA face. After BJP winning the Maharashtra assembly election, the demand has gained momentum. There have been repeated calls within the BJP for its own Chief Minister in Bihar even as the saffron party has gone the extra mile to accommodate the JD(U) in both the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The belief that he is on the way out of NDA gained currency with the cryptic comment of Amit Shah’s cryptic comment in a television interview, “We will sit together and decide who will lead the coalition in Bihar”. His quitting the NDA gained also importance with his visiting Delhi to pay condolence to DR Manmohan Singh, but skipping any meeting with either Modi or Shah. It was reported that he met a top Congress leader at former prime minister’s house where he was assured of unconditional support.

But the major stumbling block in the path of Nitish to join the INDIA bloc is, Lalu Yadav reposing trust in him. Even Tejashvi is sceptical of Nitish’s future moves. The INDIA leaders from Bihar are not sure when Nitish will desert them and go back to BJP fold. The unreliability index of Nitish is proving to be a major hindrance for him; not only in the case of INDIA bloc leaders, but also for his BJP friends.

Meanwhile RJD is agreeable to have a working relation with Nitish, but the only condition is the new government would be headed by Tejashvi Yadav. This proposal is not acceptable to Nitish, but he also scared of the BJP staging a coup to remove him. Already two senior JD(U) leader Lalan Singh and Sanjay Jha on BJP board. More than Lalan Singh, the state JD(U) leaders are afraid of the moves of Sanjay Jha, an old BJP hand. It is even murmured in the political circle that Sanjay Jha a close confident of Amit Shah, has been working at the direction of Amit Shah and giving a shape to his plan. It is said that Shah is grooming Jha as the possible successor of Nitish.

Sources maintain only yesterday Jha hosted a dinner party for the Bihar NDA leaders and legislators with Amit Shah as the pivot. It was an Amit Shah exercise to judge the mood of the state leaders and their opinion about projecting Nitish as the NDA face at 25 assembly election. The meeting also gained importance as it was convened to assess the attitude of the constituents towards Modi and national NDA. Top JD(U) leaders maintain the dinner party was a move to project Jha as the future chief minister of Bihar, before the NDA leaders and legislators.

Jha’s was in circulation for quite some time. But it did not get enough support. Of the 12 seats of MP which JD(U) won in 2024, at least 7 are ready to go with Shah and Jha. It is the non-conformist approach of the MLAs that is the matter for worry. Yesterday’s dinner also attempted to judge the inclination of the legislators, though they were not invited.

Though Chirag Paswan was present at the dinner, sources maintain that Shah did not show his empathy for him. It is widely believed that LJP leader Chirag Paswan is quite cut up with Shah and feel that he was inflicting harm to his party. Shah’s disparaging comment on Ambedkar has alienated a major chunk of Dalits and they nurse the opinion that under pressure Chirag has refrained from opposing him. It is also murmured that Shah has been working on the plan to marginalise Chirag for his increasing proximity to Nitish. ED raid only a week back at the residence and office of Hulash Pandey a close aide of Chirag is being interpreted as the example to humiliate and weaken him.

While Shah has not shown his aversion towards Nitish publicly the sources maintain that the students’ movement surrounding BPSC exam has the tacit support of the state BJP leaders. They intend to project Nitish as an incompetent leader who has no guts to face the agitation and open dialogue with the students. The students were mercilessly beaten on December 29. The police resorted to violent action only Jan Suraj leader Prashant Kishor visited the students and asked them to bring out a rally demanding re-examination. Prashant is supposed to be close to Modi and Shah. More than five lakh candidates had appeared for the Combined Competitive Examination conducted by the BPSC on December 13 when hundreds of candidates boycotted the test alleging that question papers had been leaked.

However political watchers are sure of some serious action from Nitish. They point out that a look at his political career of the past 20 years since he became Chief Minister shows that his nearly 15 yatras have always helped him make a comeback, barring the 2014 Lok Sabha election when all his calculations went wrong and he could win only two Lok Sabha seats out of 40 in Bihar. This year too on December 19 he had taken out five-day-long Pragati Yatra, with the new slogan emphasising that it is Nitish Kumar whose persona matters for the alliance in Bihar. The JD(U) leaders are sure of his continuing as the chief minister. May be he will have some new partner. Tejashvi also knows that once Amit Shah carries out coup, the BJP would rule the state. Under the political compulsion, the equation and strategy may change. (IPA Service)