Will Nitish Kumar Replace Modi as the Next Prime Minister in 2019?

State elections in 2017 will decide if Nitish Kumar can be a replacement for Narendra Modi in 2019.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar. (Photo: PTI)

Last year, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the eve of Bihar Assembly elections, announced a whopping Rs 1.25 lakh crore special package for Bihar, it took Nitish Kumar barely 24 hours to call Modi’s bluff.

In the next one week, he meticulously exposed the PM’s ‘hollow claims’ and released one advertisement after another in different newspapers to tell his people how the BJP had perpetrated a fraud by making an announcement (of the special package) for which the funds were already sanctioned and provisions made in previous budgets.

As a consequence, the BJP’s bubble burst in Bihar in the ensuing polls as no saffron leader had the guts to counter Nitish’s expose. With an engineering background, only this politician from Nalanda, who has either been a Union Minister or a Chief Minister since December 1989, could have exposed Narendra Modi’s chunavi jumla (poll promise).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Photo: Reuters)

As the BJP completes nearly two years in office, and a deep resentment gradually sinks in among the middle class (notwithstanding the recent opinion poll which makes Modi the darling of the middle class), Nitish is likely to become the rallying point for all non-BJP and non-Congress parties.

The elevation of Nitish to the Janata Dal (United) President will make the task easier for all such regional parties who have for years wanted to hold talks with Nitish and not anyone else in the JD(U), including the outgoing president Sharad Yadav.

Regional parties having a pathological hatred for the BJP – which could not align with the Congress, given the fact that the grand old party is still not out of its self-inflicted coma – would love to hold parleys with Nitish. He has a proven track record of good administration and governance, both at the Centre as well as the state level.

Modi shares a moment with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Hajipur (Photo: ANI)

Despite Nitish becoming a rallying point for the non-BJP parties, the Bihar Chief Minister would like to keep channels open with the Congress, a party whose national presence cannot be overlooked.

However, the first such test case will be the February 2017 UP polls where Nitish is likely to test political waters outside Bihar. But before that happens, he would like the Ajit Singh-headed Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and smaller outfits like Samajwadi Janata Party, Apna Dal and former Jharkhand Chief Minister Babulal Marandi’s Jharkhand Vikas Party (JVP) to merge with the JD(U).

The merger will give more teeth to the new party which is likely to be named Jan Vikas Party and its election symbol may change from the arrow to a banyan tree.

Bumpy Road Ahead

Nitish, in his bid to play a national role, will, however, face two imminent challenges outside his State.

First, he will have to create a proper semblance between his fellow caste group of Kurmi-Koeri-Kushwahas and make them work in tandem with the numerically-strong Yadavs in UP.

Already Lalu Prasad was measured in his words while welcoming Nitish’s elevation as party chief, given the fact a fellow Yadav, Sharad Yadav, was given the boot.

Secondly, Nitish will have to re-do the caste arithmetic in UP where the support base (dalits and OBCs), unlike Bihar, do not see eye-to-eye with each other.

BSP Chief Mayawati at a press conference. (Photo: PTI)

While Dalits remain predominantly loyal to Mayawati, the OBCs, most of whom are Yadavs, pledge their allegiance to Mulayam Singh. As a first step, Nitish, after completing the merger process, could work out a Grand Alliance-type experiment in UP with the Congress, a party which has roped in his poll strategist Prashant Kishore to infuse a new life into the moribund organisation.

Today, it may appear that there is no alternative to Nitish within and outside his party, but the fate of 2017 polls in UP will decide whether Nitish could be a substitute to Modi in 2019. Till then, keep your fingers crossed.

(Written by a senior Bihar-based journalist who wished to remain anonymous.)