Patna,(BiharTimes): Exactly a year ago on June 16 Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar broke his 17 years long association with the Bharatiya Janata Party. He threw out 11 saffron party ministers from his cabinet.

It can not be said whether he was really imitating his Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik or not, there is something common in both the moves. Naveen took the bold step after the killing of a large number of Christians in his state in 2008. He held the BJP responsible for it.

His party, the Biju Janata Dal, won the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections held less than a year later in 2009 without much difficulty. In the state Assembly it bagged 103 out of 147 seats leaving just six for the BJP. The BJP was virtually decimated.

He repeated his performance in 2014. The party improved its Assembly tally by over a dozen seats and won 20 out of 21 seats in the Lok Sabha election. The BJP performed disastrously in the state notwithstanding the fact that it had a relatively strong presence in the tribal belt and Odisha has about half the percentage of Muslims than Bihar, where they form over 16.5 per cent of the electorate.

Like the Odisha chief minister, Nitish Kumar too broke his relationship with the BJP just a year before the crucial parliamentary election hoping that he would be able to cash in on the good impression created about him by the media. 

Though there was no massacre of any minority in Bihar, Nitish snapped his ties when its alliance partner, the BJP, projected Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate.

While Naveen won Nitish failed and a year later his party is in total disarray. The man has lost all the goodwill created by the media. After the split he was accused of heading the most corrupt and inefficient government in the state history. 

A day after the Lok Sabha results were announced he resigned. Two days later he handpicked a mahadalit minister as the chief minister only to rule the state from behind.

Undoubtedly no other chief minister in India’s history got so much praise, publicity, honour and awards from the big media houses––even from abroad. In Bihar nobody would dare to report anything against his government though some bold journalists did come out with a few stories––a couple of them had to pay the price.

But no chief minister in the country’s history has such a sharp decline too. In one year he has messed up everything. He squandered the chance to emerge as another Naveen because of poor political decisions and terrible errors of judgement.

Had he played politics in a better way he would have performed better in the recent Lok Sabha election. But he was too stubborn to accept his own inherent weakness. He became too big for his boots and grossly overestimated himself and underestimated the strength of the BJP. 

The problem with Nitish is that for three full years––that is between June 12, 2010, when he cancelled dinner on the occasion of BJP national executive in Patna and June 16, 2013, when he finally parted ways––he unnecessarily attacked Narendra Modi, with whom he had a very good relationship. Thanks to Nitish’s diatribe against his Gujarat counterpart the stature of NaMo increased in these three years. The more he abused NaMo the more powerful he became. 

He severed his ties with the BJP after playing into the hands of the Advani faction of the party. He reduced his party to the B-team of the saffron brigade. It was none else but Nitish who, a few months after the Gujarat riots, had suggested NaMo to move to the centrestage of the national politics.

So if one person in Bihar who really made Narendra Modi strong it is none else but Nitish Kumar. After splitting with the BJP he made a series of blunders. He wasted his time in responding to the charges of the BJP leaders and fell into their trap. 

He never trusted his best friends and did not expand his cabinet by inducting legislators, who stood through thick and thin. Those who are challenging him now such as Gyanendra Singh Gyanu and Poonam Devi were his most trusted lieutenants. But he always relied on turncoats and defectors and breaking other parties, rather than rewarding one’s own soldiers. He never took anyone into confidence while taking major decisions––such as the one he took on June 16 last. He humiliated and virtually kicked out leaders like Shivanand Tiwari and N K Singh.

Thus Lalu Yadav’s charge that “Koi aisa saga nahin jis ko Nitish thaga nahin” (There is no one dear to him, whom Nitish has not betrayed or cheated) soon gained acceptability.

On the other hand Naveen Patnaik did not play such politics. He did not give the BJP so long a time and never indulged in abusing any of its leader. He suddenly broke his relationship leaving the BJP high and dry. Within six months he consolidated his position and won both the Assembly and parliamentary election by big margins. 

Naveen did not let the BJP to recover its ground when he parted ways. The Modi wave failed disastrously when there was much scope for it to succeed in the state. There is a big tribal population, among whom the BJP had spread its tentacles. The marginal presence of Muslims should have helped the BJP, but that did not happen.

While Naveen marshaled his resources and fought both the Congress, which was relatively strong there, as well as the BJP, in Bihar Nitish let things go out of hand. A year later he is inviting trouble everyday.