They say politics makes strange bedfellows. Nowhere is this truer than in India, where politics makes the strangest and most unlikely of bedfellows based on political expediency and personal/familial ambition. The resignation of Nitish Kumar, Bihar Chief Minister may be designed to cement the leader’s clean credentials, but it has highlighted the deep seated corruption in Indian politics and demonstrated how swift opportunism and cosy compromises manage to manipulate our democracy. We look at what happened, why, when and how:
It was called the Mahagatbandhan – the Grand or Rainbow Alliance – an unlikely alliance of former foes united by the common purpose of posing a challenge to the BJP juggernaut. However it was an uneasy alliance and one that was hobbled by competing ambitions, personality problems and ideological differences.
The grand alliance was cobbled together; made up of the Janata Parivar group (made up of the Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal, Janata Dal (Secular), Indian National Lok Dal and Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya) plus the Indian National Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party helmed by Nitish Kumar as CM. It was probably always a case of too many cooks/ too many ideologies /too many egos.
Nitish Kumar was among the few opposition leaders to support demonetisation. Then there was the issue of seat sharing before the Uttar Pradesh elections that resulted in fissures within the Grand Alliance. Then of course there was the resounding victory for the BJP in UP, which left the Mahagatbandhan shell-shocked and under serious threat of complete disintegration.
The Bihar CM publicly supported several of the moves of the Narendra Modi led central government. He also was seen to support the PM personally at several instances; such as when he preferred to attend a meeting with the PM to discuss the Presidential candidate rather than attend the meeting of opposition leaders.
Various charges of corruption have been leveled against Tejashwi Yadav, son of Lalu Prasad Yadav and then Deputy CM of Bihar. Lalu’s home in Patna was raided, his daughter Misa Bharti’s holdings at three different places were raided.
A cabinet meeting on 17 July was attended by Nitish, Tejashwi and others. Until then the Alliance seemed to have survived. Lalu was quoted as saying that Tejashwi would not resign; nor had such a resignation been asked for. However on 26 July 2017, Nitish Kumar announced that he was quitting the Mahagatbandhan and tendered his resignation as CM as well. The BJP of course, was quick to offer support.
At 10 AM on 27 July 2017 Nitish Kumar was once again sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bihar; this time with the backing of the BJP – the party described as the “communal force” that the Mahagatbandhan had been formed to put up resistance to in the first place. So there you have it: a story of a political masterstroke! A story of expediency, chicanery, obduracy and of arguably one of the shortest ever periods for which a CM resigned before reassuming office!
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