Soroor Ahmed

Even before the election results are out, several Janata Dal (United) bigwigs have (in private) started accepting that their party is going to end up third in the race. The tussle in the 2014 Lok Sabha election is between BJP-led combination and RJD-Congress alliance. 

But what went wrong with the ruling party of Bihar. Among many factors one of the most important one is the way Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is running the party. He failed to learn from his political rivals in Bihar, the BJP and RJD. Instead of trusting own lieutenants and motivating them in this hour of great challenge he chose to publicly ridiculed some of the top leaders.

In Bihar’s history perhaps no political leader has publicly rebuked and humiliated the three sitting Rajya Sabha MPs of one’s own party as he did. 

The contemptuous manner in which he addressed Shivanand Tiwary, N K Singh and Sabir Ali in a gatheriing at S K Memorial Hall early this year only reveals his misplaced over-confidence––almost bordering arrogance. 

True, Shivanand Tiwary did indulge in some plain-speaking at Chintan Shivir in Rajgir on October 28 last, but N K Singh and Sabir Ali did not speak anything against the CM. 

Singh was in fact instrumental in liaisoning work with the corporate and big media houses. He was sort of an asset for Nitish in this field at least. True his brother, Uday Singh, is the BJP MP, and even he had served as a senior bureaucrat in the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee office. But that does not mean that he should be suspected as the BJP agent as then Nitish himself was the minister in the NDA cabinet. 

One failed to understand why Nitish asked the three MPs in this big open meeting “Jaiye chunaw ladiye.” (Go and contest the election), This was the way he treated his top party colleagues.

Similarly, Sabir was till December last year JD(U)’s election incharge of Delhi. How can Nitish club Tiwary with Singh and Sabir Ali. The move to sack all three from the party amounts to throwing baby with bath water.

Even the anger with Shivanand was misplaced. Yes he had warned the party leadership of the coming challenge. But he was not wrong as later developments proved that he was right. 

As a replacement to Rajya Sabha Nitish sent three political lightweights. They are editor of Prabhat Khabar, Harivansh, Ramnath Thakur, son of former CM Karpoori Thakur and Kahkashan Parween. Thakur’s political clout can be measured from the fact that he lost his own seat from Samastipur to RJD’s Akhtar-ul-Islam Shaheen, a political greenhorn. He was a minister in the Nitish cabinet, yet lost when the NDA wave was blowing all over the state in 2010.

Parween, the then chairperson of Bihar State Women’s Commission, was not even known to the party president, Sharad Yadav. He fumbled even in announcing her name in the public meeting.

Nitish was playing too many cards at a time––fighting friend-turned-rival, the BJP; taking on the RJD as well as trying to empower Extremely Backward Castes and Mahadalits. For this he needed enormous trust and support of the party leaders and workers.

But the contempt with which he started treating them was bound to alienate him further. When he threw out 11 ministers of the BJP, the first thing he was expected to do was to expand the cabinet with Janata Dal (U) legislators and with that of four Independents who are lending support to the state government.

This would have worked as an incentive to many leaders as well as workers. He kept the seats in legislative council vacant for too long.

Instead the JD(U) got busy in wooing some insignificant leaders of the rival parties. In a hasty move to lure Muslim voters Nitish gave tickets to Akhtar-ul-Iman, Ghulam Ghouse and Abu Qaiser, all from RJD. The last named even lost the last Assembly election on RJD ticket.

To check the exodus of Koeri voters he wooed the RJD MLA, Samrat Chaudhary, but failed to give him or his father Shakuni Chaudhary ticket from any Lok Sabha seat. How can he then expect Koeri voters to still rely on him?

Though he gave ticket to Ghulam Ghouse and Abu Qaiser he can not accommodate his lone Muslim MP of his party, Monazir Hassan. True Begusarai seat, from which he was elected last time, went to the alliance partner, the CPI, yet Monazir could have been given ticket from any seat in the state. Why was he cut to size could not be known? 

Then to keep Monazir in good humour Nitish gave ticket to Monazir’s wife to contest Assembly election from Sahebpur Kamal after Parween Amanullah quit the seat. 

Nitish thus went to the poll with the most dispirited war machine. He refused to accept that there was NaMo wave, but how can one deny the NaMo effect?

Similarly, it was beyond one’s understanding as to how a seasoned politician like Nitish failed to measure the resurgence of RJD in Bihar. This party was down in the dump till the first week of March when first 13 of its MLAs rebelled to be followed by the desertion by trusted leaders like Ram Kripal Yadav and Ghouse. Yet two months later it is in the best position to challenge the BJP. 

By better management Nitish certainly would have been in a better position to emerge as the main rival against the saffron party.