Nitish Kumar’s mission of unity

Amid the Monday morning bustle of the capital on September 26, a relaxed air pervaded the 6, K. Kamraj Lane bungalow of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar—his official pad while in Lutyens’ Delhi. No slogan-shouting supporters on the lawns, nor people seeking favours milling around. The security personnel at the gate were having a surprisingly easy time. The place had been a hubbub of activity just a day earlier as Nitish prepared to accompany Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi. With the gravitational pull of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls getting stronger by the day, the two leaders had discussed one of the hottest political questions in India: the contours of an anti-BJP opposition. On that very day, Nitish had also attended the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) chief Om Prakash Chautala’s rally in Haryana’s Fatehabad, held to mark the 109th birth anniversary of former deputy prime minister Devi Lal. Nitish, who had dumped the BJP and formed a mahagathbandhan government in Bihar with the RJD, Congress and Left parties in August, has now emerged as a prime galvaniser of a possible opposition front. At the rally, also attended by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Arvind Sawant of the Shiv Sena and Shiromani Akali Dal’s Sukhbir Singh Badal, Nitish spelt out a simple formula. “If all these parties get together, they (BJP) won’t be able to win at all in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” he said.

Inside his sprawling bungalow, Nitish sat in his sparely furnished drawing room with close aides—Bihar minister Sanjay Jha and Janata Dal (United) national president Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh. The Bihar CM, while ensuring that every visitor was served tea, looked unflustered by the enormity of the task he has undertaken. Dooubtless, stitching a unified front among opposition parties is a work in progress requiring infinite patience. It might take weeks, if not months, to fructify, says a confidant. In private conversations, an optimistic Nitish tells visitors that a total unification of the opposition, as he has been calling for, may take him across the country. The endeavour, he says, is less difficult than expected. Opposition leaders, according to the feedback Nitish has received, have been watching the BJP juggernaut gaining in strength and audacity—it holds power in 17 states and Union territories—with increasing apprehension, and are expected to come together to face the challenge.

Importance of the Congress

When Nitish and Lalu met Sonia Gandhi in the evening of September 25, they asked her, as president of the biggest opposition party, to also take the initiative for a unified front. Sonia is believed to have promised to hold a discussion after the Cong­­ress presidential election. That very Sunday, not far from Delhi, over 90 Rajasthan Congress MLAs loyal to CM Ashok Gehlot threatened to resign, throwing the party into a crisis. The Bihar CM has taken note of the developments, but he is not “unnecessarily worried” at the fragility displayed within the Congress, points out the confidant.

“The CM has a plan in place and a lot of it hinges on regional leaders too. Mam­ata Banerjee in West Bengal, K. Chandrashekar Rao in Telangana, M.K. Stalin in Tamil Nadu, Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra, Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi, Akhilesh Yadav in UP and Tejashwi Yadav in Bihar. The BJP has formidable adversaries in different regions, and we all need to ensure that these forces work in perfect harmony,” he says.

The idea of a grand anti-BJP front is not new. KCR had made strenuous efforts since late 2018 and well into 2019, before the Lok Sabha polls, to build such an alliance. He met pro­­m­inent opposition leaders across the country, but his ‘federal’, ‘non-BJP, non-Congress’ alliance did not materialise. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s exertions towards an ‘anti-BJP, anti-Congress’ front also met the same fate. The Congress, thus, was conspicuous by its absence from their plans. This is where Nitish Kumar crucially differs. His idea of an opposition front—he calls it the ‘main front’—involves a rainbow coalition of political parties, including both the Congress and the Left.

Like Lalu and Pawar, Nitish believes that given its pan-India presence, the Congress is important because it was in direct contest with the BJP in nearly 200 seats in both the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls. As the BJP won most of these seats, it may suffer from some anti-incumbency and with help from regional parties, the Congress can win a good many back. So goes the thinking. At the rally in Fatehabad, he exhorted the leaders on the dais, including some with a strong anti-Congress history, to bury their differences and work for a larger unity.

There is likely to be some focus on exp­anding the opposition by ass­imilating diverse social groups with conflicting interests within its fold. The concept is similar to that of UPA-1 and UPA-2, without actually granting or denying leadership to the Congress. Besides, Nitish is opposed to the idea of the Congress backing an alliance from outside, like the United Front that formed two short-lived governments in 1996 and 1998 headed by H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral, respectively.

Nitish first mentioned a countrywide anti-BJP mahagathbandhan on August 31, when he shared his thoughts on opposition unity with KCR, who vis­­ited him in Patna. When a journalist asked KCR about his opinion, Nitish cut in, saying, “It will not be any third front, but the main opposition front.” KCR, the votary of a non-BJP-non-Congress alliance, nodded with a smile. KCR, however, has his own plans for uniting the oppositi­on as well as expanding his footprint nationally. In a meeting in Hyderabad on October 5, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi was formally renamed the Bha­­­­rat Rashtra Samithi. The new party is expected to fight the 2024 polls from several states.

Hope for the Opposition

On August 9, as Nitish snapped ties with the BJP and formed a government with the RJD, Congress and others, he set off a surge of optimism among opp­osition parties. He received calls from a cross-section of leaders—while KCR paid a visit, leaders like Mamata Banerjee and Uddhav Thackeray called to express solidarity. Nitish told all of them to help stitch a grand alliance against the BJP. The enthusiasm in the opposition ranks is not without reason. After all, a body blow to the BJP in an electorally important state like Bihar was the one positive since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Consi­der also the demoralising effect of the BJP toppling governments in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, as well as five others in the same way since 2014. Seeing the BJP on the receiving end for a change, the schadenfreude was palpable. Besides, a canny actor like Nitish becoming available to the opposition is itself a shift in gravity.

During his visit to Delhi during the first week of September, the Bihar CM met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Sharad Pawar, Janata Dal (Secular) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy, Sitaram Yechury, CPI’s D. Raja, Om Prakash Chautala and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav with an idea clearly to create a rainbow alliance against BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Almost all discussions Nitish has held with opposition leaders have lasted over an hour. Insiders describe the discussions as candid, with Nitish drawing on his experience and stature to emphasise the urgent need to come together. Then there is the matter of prime ministership. Nitish has repeatedly said that he is not a PM candidate. On Sep­­t­ember 26, he told media­persons that he had no electoral ambitions in UP for the LS polls. “It is not about me. It never was,” he said, insisting that his solitary focus is on uniting the opposition.

While Nitish has not gone into the specifics of his meetings in his media interactions, those in the know of JD(U) strategy explain the plan. “It might sound like oversimplification, but the fact is that the BJP, at the peak of its popularity, got about 38 per cent votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. It means 62 per cent of the electorate still voted against the BJP. A part of our idea is to consolidate these voters,” says a JD(U) leader.

Those with access to the CM’s inner circle also add that of the 303 seats that the BJP won in 2019, just 12 states, including Bihar, alone contributed 262 seats, or 87 per cent of the BJP’s Lok Sabha strength.

These states are Assam (9 seats), Bihar (17), Gujarat (26), Haryana (10), Karnataka (25), Madhya Pradesh (28), Maharashtra (23), Rajasthan (24), Uttar Pradesh (62), West Bengal (18), Chhattisgarh (9) and Jharkhand (11).

The JD(U) think-tank believes that the law of averages might bring down BJP numbers in some states where it had done exceedingly well, and where there is little room to improve. Like in Rajasthan, where it had won 24 of 25 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, MP (28 of 29 seats), Karnataka (25 of 28 seats), Haryana (all 10 seats), Gujarat (all 26 seats) and Jharkhand (11 of 14 seats). The BJP, according to the strategy, has to be challenged hard in these states.

Besides, in Tamil Nadu (with a total 39 LS seats), Kerala (20 seats), Telangana (17), Andhra Pradesh (25), Bihar (40), Punjab (13), Odisha (21) and West Bengal (42), the BJP is yet to find firm ground. Part of the plan is to keep it that way, through formidable alliances.

The big challenges

Having taken oath as Bihar chief minister for the eighth time on August 10, Nitish has already become the longest-serving in that role. He has little left to prove in state politics. In fact, he made his intentions plain from day one, when he told mediapersons shortly after taking oath: “Those who won in 2014 should be concerned if they will be able to continue after 2024.” It was nothing less than a throwing down of the gauntlet to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Clearly, though he still remains the diligent CM, sitting through hours-long meetings and poring over every document placed before him, the 71-year-old socialist now has a political focus beyond his home state. Indeed, his concept of opposition unity ahead of the 2024 polls can be seen as an extension of his seven-party anti-NDA mahagathbandhan in Bihar. To be sure, Nitish is projecting it as a template for a national opposition against the BJP.

The big challenge for Nitish now is to replicate such a coalition at the natio­nal level, where the BJP is the big­­g­­est beast in the political jungle and the opposition appears to be a div­ided lot. The voters may also look for a personality deemed strong enough to counter PM Modi for the national polls. The task, at every level, is fraught with difficulty.

Take just a few examples. Now that it’s clear that the Congress is sought as a coalition partner, the bitter differen­ces between it, the Left Front and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal will have to be set aside. The Left and the Congress are rivals in Kerala too. With all these regional gulfs to be bridged, one sees why the concept of a grand opposition unity is often dismissed merely as an ‘academic idea’.

A senior JD(U) leader disagrees. “Do you think we have not taken into account all of this? This is a time to take one step a day. The leaders whom Nitish Kumar met in New Delhi are all in agreement. It is time to cut down our ambition to ensure the survival of the opposition,” he says. He adds that those who cannot join now can come on board in the post-poll scenario.

Nitish seems to be confident. In off-the-record conversations, his aides recall how he made the Communists support his candidature when he con­t­e­­sted—and won handsomely—his first Lok Sabha election in 1989 from the Barh constituency in Bihar. Now, 33 years later and with immense governance, and coalition, credentials under his belt, Nitish hopes to work his powers of persuasion on opposition leaders.

Securing the home front

A section of BJP politicians admit that their party faces a massive challenge in Bihar in 2024, as the combined might of Nitish and Lalu and the social coalition they draw upon appear unassailable on paper. The BJP is certainly not taking things easy. Union home minister Amit Shah addressed a rally in Purnia on September 23; on October 11, he will attend a function in Saran to mark the birth ann­­iversary of socialist icon Jayaprakash Narayan.

Senior BJP leader Sushil Modi, however, rejects claims about the BJP getting jittery. “You cannot comp­are state elections with Lok Sabha polls. BJP has Narendra Modi, and a national narrative that the opposition just cannot counter, either in Bihar or elsewhere. We have 17 Lok Sabha MPs in Bihar and as per our preliminary ass­essment, we will win more than twice that number in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” he says.

Along with the leap on to the national stage, Nitish has to cover the bases in Bihar too. His new government, with RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav as his deputy chief minister, has completed two months in office. Though in terms of social strength, the mahagathbandhan is formidable—with strong backing from Yadavs, Muslims, Economically Backward Classes, Dalits, and a majority of OBCs (Other Backward Classes)—it has several challenges to deal with. Firstly, any CM hoping to influence the Lok Sabha polls has to present his state as an achievement, like Modi projected Gujarat in 2014. To accomplish that, Nitish must move towards fulfilling his promise of two million government jobs that he made on August 15. Also, his coalition, though strongly forged, has seen two RJD ministers quit their posts. Sugarcane industry minister Kartikeya Singh resigned on August 31 because of a legal case pending against him whereas agriculture minister Sudhakar Singh stepped down on October 2 after open differences with the CM on issues pertaining to his department. While Tejashwi has backed Nitish on making the ministers put in their papers, coordination between the two parties leaves a lot to be desired. Poll strategist Prashant Kishor, who is expected to launch his Bihar-centric party after his Jan Samaj Padyatra, has criticised Nitish Kumar’s outreach. He described Nitish’s recent meetings with opposition leaders as ‘photo-ops’. The BJP, which is now free of anti-incumbency worries, will aggressively consolidate and look for chinks in Nitish and Tejashwi’s armour.

Outside Bihar, though, there is a role reversal of sorts for Nitish, as he endeavours to tease out the BJP’s weaknesses. It remains to be seen if he can help fash­­ion a unified front out of the babel of opposition voices.