PATNA: Switching loyalty — and doing so efficiently and quietly — comes so naturally to Bihar’s eight-time Chief Minister Nitish Kumar that on all these tense occasions, the outcome would be achieved coolly and with aplomb. Each time he reaffirmed his unenviable moniker — Palturam — to appear before the press, he always wore his trademark, disarming smile as though being a champion turncoat was all in a day’s work.
Politicians at the national and state levels, however, concede him an astonishing political acumen and an impeccable sense of timing. He broke away from the NDA about a month ago and gave himself sufficient time to prepare himself before taking a shot at Delhi. The operation to dump his BJP deputy, Sushil Modi, was so smooth that he never realised what hit him before the game was up.
Sushil Modi had clearly forgotten the events in 2013 when Nitish walked out from the NDA after Narendra Modi was elected BJP election committee chairman for the 2014 parliamentary polls. Four years later, Nitish was back in the NDA fold when the partner he abandoned, RJD’s Tejaswi Yadav, failed to respond to his charges against him in the IRCTC land-for-jobs scam.
There is yet another side to Nitish’s persona that sets him apart from politicians of even the craft variety: he never projects himself as a prime ministerial aspirant. This time, voices of support have begun emanating from within the JDU fold. While it is too early for him to declared a prime ministerial candidate, what is certain is that he play a crucial role in forging opposition unity and formulating an electoral strategy.
With RJD driving merrily along with Nitish, the alliance — comprising the Left parties and former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awami Morcha — has a strong vote share. Besides, his image of a development-oriented politician will likely hold him in good stead when he pitchforks himself to the national arena.
Nitish may yet pass the chief minister’s baton to Tejaswi when the time approaches to place himself in a position for a shot at Delhi. Nitish was born on March 1, 1951, at Bakhtiyarpur in Patna district, where his father ‘Kaviraj’ Ram Lakhan Singh was an ayurveda practitioner while his mother Parameshwari Devi was a house maker. An engineering graduate from Bihar College of Engineering (now an NIT), Nitish was an active participant in the JP movement, which ultimately proved a launching pad for his political career, like many other political bigwigs including Lalu Prasad and Sushil Modi.
But his entry into politics was not without some initial setbacks. He suffered two successive defeats in the 1977 and 1980 assembly elections from Harnaut in his native Nalanda district. He contemplated taking to some business but before doing so he sought a last chance from his wife Manju Kumari Sinha. Nitish’s close friend Munna Sarkar helped collect donations for him to contest the polls in 1985. His wife too chipped in `20,000 from her savings. The result: he won the Harnaut seat.
This followed a string of victories in elections to the Lok Sabha — in 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998 and 1999 before he assumed the chief ministership of Bihar in 2005. He did become chief minister in 2000 but resigned when it was clear that he would not be able to prove his majority on the floor. While he became adroit in switching parties, Nitish has a clean image and never patronised ‘parivarvad’. His only son Nishant Kumar is an engineering graduate from BIT, Mesra, Ranchi (Jharkhand) and prefers to remain out of media glare.
ANOTHER SIDE TO KUMAR’S PERSONA
There is yet another side to Nitish’s persona that sets him apart from politicians of even the craft variety: he never projects himself as a prime ministerial aspirant