Nitish Kumar's switcheroo in Bihar is no surprise but did the BJP precipitate it?

Bihar Chief Minister and JDU Chief Nitish Kumar.

Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar has a penchant for giving shocks to his alliance partners. In 2017, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress bore the brunt, and this time the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is at the receiving end. The BJP was in a similar position in 2013. Kumar had ended his ties of 17 years after the BJP named then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate.

On Tuesday, the country watched how he outsmarted the BJP and joined hands with RJD's Tejashwi Yadav whom he had, five years ago, cited as  the reason for dumping the 'mahagathbandhan' or grand alliance. He had sought Yadav's resignation as the deputy chief minister over allegations of corruption. As RJD supremo Lalu Prasad rejected his demand, he resigned as the chief minister of 'mahagathbandhan' and within hours assumed the post again with the BJP as his partner.

History will repeat itself on Wednesday when Kumar, 71, takes oath as the Bihar chief minister for the eighth time.

No other Indian politician has mastered this art of remaining in power by changing partners except Kumar whose support base of Kurmis is merely 2% of Bihar's population.

That said, the biggest beneficiary of Kumar's latest switch is 32-year-old Yadav who will be much more assertive this time.

For him, it is a god sent opportunity given that he had narrowly missed the chance of becoming chief minister in the 2020 assembly elections - courtesy the Congress, which emerged as the weakest link in the 'mahagathbandhan'.

The weak link tag might have led the grand old party to promptly announce its support for Kumar. It can also be seen as a tit-for-tat reaction following the ouster by the BJP of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra of which the Congress was a part.

In the absence of his charismatic father and Bihar's only mass leader Lalu Prasad, who was in a prison hospital then serving a jail term in the fodder scam, Yadav fought a good battle against the might of the JD(U) and the BJP. The RJD became the single largest party in the 243-member assembly.

As part of the government, Yadav also has to prove himself especially when there is very little to talk about his first stint as a minister.

The RJD leader will try to fulfill the promises he made in 2020 and go to the next elections with something to showcase.

As leader of the opposition in Bihar, he had made the right noises and at the same time established himself as a rightful heir to Lalu Prasad's political legacy.

If Kumar sticks to the present arrangement and sticks to the alliance partners till 2024 and agrees to be the Opposition's candidate against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then Yadav might get a chance to occupy the chief minister's chair much before the 2025 Bihar polls.

Though age and time are on his side, Yadav will have to counter a resurgent BJP in the next elections.

The saffron party seems to have scored a self goal by trying to repeat Maharashtra in Bihar.

If what former union minister and rebel JD(U) leader RCP Singh said is true, the BJP had clearly undermined Kumar's authority by not consulting him or asking him for his choice of a nominee for expansion of the Union Cabinet in July last year.

Singh claimed that union home minister Amit Shah directly asked him to join the Union Cabinet in July last year and convey the BJP's decision to Kumar.

Secondly, JD(U) leaders have claimed to be in possession of audio recordings of a central BJP minister offering money and ministerial berths to some of their legislators.

If true, the BJP wanted to see the exit of Kumar who as it is had been wary of the saffron party ever since late Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader and former union minister Ram Vikas Paswan's son Chirag Paswan decided to field candidates against the JD(U) in the 2020 assembly elections in Bihar. The move damaged the prospects of the JD(U) candidates in about 30 constituencies and as a result Kumar's party could win just 43 seats compared to the BJP's 74.

This was the first time that the BJP had won more seats than the JD(U) ever since they came together. Kumar was convinced that Paswan was being nudged by the BJP despite the LJP having exited the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar. Paswan was seen at the NDA meet on July 17, a day ahead of the presidential elections.

In the past few months, Kumar had taken a divergent stand from that of the BJP on many issues such as the proposed population control legislation, the anti-conversion law, National Register of Citizens (NRC), National Population Register (NPR), and the national caste census.

In the run-up to his formal divorce with the BJP, Kumar is said to have held several meetings with Yadav.

Perhaps, the BJP could have got an inkling of what was coming and reportedly wanted to do a Shiv Sena on the JD(U) as a pre-emptive move. Though the BJP found an Eknath Shinde in RCP Singh, it had no Devendra Fadnavis to execute the plan in Bihar.

For now, the saffron party will have to abandon any such plan and wait for  another volte-face by Kumar. Only time will tell if Kumar lives up to his reputation of switching alliance partners or tolerates the RJD's one-upmanship to steer the so-called secular coalition till 2024 and beyond.

Aurangzeb Naqshbandi is a senior journalist who has been covering the Congress for 15 years, and is currently associated with Pixstory.