JDU President R C P Singh and even party leader in the Lok Sabha, Lallan Singh, are closer to the BJP leadership than Nitish himself.
Soroor Ahmed | Clarion India
WHEN Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said on Tuesday, that is just a day before July 7 expansion of the Narendra Modi cabinet that he knows nothing about the number of ministers going to be inducted from his party, the Janata Dal-United, was he feigning ignorance?
He was, no doubt, right when he said that it is the prerogative of the Prime Minister whom to take and whom not to take. But the issue is not so simple as it appears to be.
What is more significant is that Nitish said he has no idea about any formula and that his party’s national president, R C P Singh, is authorised to take decision in this regard. He also said that what had happened in the past is over now and that he used to be the Janata Dal-United’s president then.
Nitish was obviously referring to the development of May 30, 2019 when he reportedly refused to accept the offer of only symbolic representation of the allies in the Union cabinet. The Janata Dal-United too was offered just one berth like Lok Janshakti Party, though the former had won 16 seats and the latter only six in the Lok Sabha election held then.
Nitish, who used to talk on equal terms with the BJP then, had another point. If the BJP, which bagged 17 seats in Bihar, could have five ministers from the state, why should his own party be left with just one seat when the Janata Dal-United’s contribution in the big NDA victory can not be under-estimated. It won 39 out of 40 parliamentary seats in Bihar.
But much water has flown down the Ganga in the last two years and post-November 2020 Assembly election Nitish is not the same person and has lost much of the bargaining position as his party could win only 43 seats against 74 by the ally, the BJP.
A month later Nitish got installed fellow Kurmi and a former bureaucrat, R C P Singh, as the national president of Janata Dal-United. When all this was going on in Patna around Christmas, the BJP broke six of the seven Janata Dal-United MLAs of Arunachal Pradesh. The JD-U strongly protested but it was to no avail.
Now when Nitish said that his party chief R C P Singh has been authorised to take up the matter of cabinet expansion, what he left unsaid is more important. After all the big question is authorised by whom — Nitish or the top brass of the BJP. This is simply because it is common knowledge now that R C P Singh and even the leader of the Janata Dal-United in Lok Sabha, Lallan Singh, are closer to the BJP leadership than Nitish himself.
When Prashant Kishor was made the vice president of Janata Dal-United in October 2018 and started functioning as number two, R C P Singh virtually dissociated himself from the party. Even during the months after the March 24, 2020 lockdown he remained away from Patna and was reportedly living in his native village in Nalanda district. Rumours started doing the rounds that he may even cross over to the BJP. Even during the last year’s Assembly election neither he nor Lallan Singh played any significant role. Lallan had in the past even left Janata Dal-United only to be brought back later.
If independent political observers are to be believed R C P Singh and Lallan Singh will work more for their own induction into the cabinet rather than making any effort to get Extremely Backward Caste Janata Dal-United leaders get place — which may be the wish of Nitish Kumar. They might have played some role in the break-up of Lok Janshakti Party and wooing Pashupati Kumar Paras, but nobody is sure whether they, especially Lallan, did so for Nitish or for Narendra Modi.
It is because of this reason that many Bihar-watchers are ready to accept what Nitish said on July 7 just ahead of the first cabinet expansion of the second Modi innings. As to how much things have changed for Nitish in the last couple of years can be gauged from the fact that when none could be inducted from the Janata Dal-United in May 2019 many in Bihar said that the chief minister is actually very pleased as he did not want to see that any of his own party leader grows in stature.
It was also argued that had Nitish made some hard bargaining, as he was in position then, he would have got more than one seat in the cabinet. But he was not very serious.
Today the whole story is very different.
