 Patna,(BiharTimes): Though the Nitish government managed to win the trust vote on Wednesday, thanks to the support from four MLAs of the Congress party, the truth is that suddenly the chief minister is finding himself on a very weak wicket.
True, he may survive the present crisis, yet what is of concern for him is that various elements within the party has started twisting his arm. On the other hand the party’s national chief, Sharad Yadav, is becoming irrelevant. He is no more the NDA convenor and is not feeling secured in his own constituency, Madhepura. BJP has substantial support base in that constituency.
Besides, he, along with R C P Sinha, are two MPs of JD(U) in the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G Spectrum Scam. It is to be seen what stand he takes now.
For Sharad to join hands with Congress is unthinkable. It amounts to––using his own expression in a different context––taking poison rather than have any truck with Congress.
Many observers have started writing political obituary of Sharad Yadav and fear that he may face the fate of George Fernandes. He may simply fade away as there is no work left for him now. Nitish has made use of him.
So if the problem of Sharad is that he may gradually disappear from the scene Nitish is facing a bigger problem. Now there is pressure from various sections within. While one group of partymen would call for making Agriculture Minister, Narendra Singh, as the deputy chief minister to neutralize the big tilt of Rajputs towards RJD as was evident during the Maharajganj by-poll; another faction within may demand that Anant Singh be also made minister. After all he is a very close confidant of Nitish and is a very ‘strongman’.
Yet others in the party are closely working to project Vijendra Yadav as the deputy CM for obvious socio-poliical reasons.
Till now the 91 MLAs from BJP were preventing all these elements from flexing their muscles and blackmail Nitish Kumar. Now he would spend most of the time keeping his flock together.
The four independent MLAs who supported Nitish are class in themselves. One of them has started demanding home portfolio for himself on the plea that he had been a police sub-inspector in the past.
There is no denying the fact that most of the key portfolios like Finance, Health, Road Construction, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries, Tourism etc were in the hands of BJP ministers. The Janata Dal (United) is seriously lacking such experienced hands to replace them.
Incidentally, some other important portfolios are in the hands of those ministers who crossed over from RJD in the recent years.
In the absence of able ministers it would be bureaucrats who would be controlling the government even more strongly now.
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