Patna, (Bihar Times): Five days after the first major
reshuffle in the Nitish Kumar cabinet the infighting
within the National Democratic Alliance, especially in
the Bharatiya Janata Party, is yet to subside. BJP
workers have not only gone on warpath against the
Deputy Chief Minister, Sushil Kumar Modi and state
party chief Radha Mohan Singh to protest against the
unceremonious sacking of better-performing Health
Minister, Chandra Mohan Rai and Art and Culture
Minister, Janardhan Singh Sigriwal, but are
questioning the wisdowm of the chief minister Nitish
Kumar.
How can a politician like Giriraj Singh of the BJP,
who remains in the news for all the wrong reasons, be
a replacement for Chandra Mohan Rai, who handled his
portfolio so well? And how can a man like Bhagwan
Singh Khuswaha of the Janata Dal (United), against
whom even murder case is pending, be inducted into the
cabinet? This is the question doing the rounds in the
political circle.
As a damage limitation exercise Sushil Modi, on
Friday, called a Press conference to disclose that
there would be another cabinet expansion within six
months. But his statement did not go down well as
there is no scope for any further induction in the
Nitish ministry. It needs to be mentioned that only 11
per cent of the total MLAs of any state assembly can
be included in the cabinet. The Bihar assembly has the
strength of 243 and there are in all 36 ministers
here.
With crisis in the BJP the party with a
difference refusing to blow over things are not well
either in the Janata Dal (United). Initially it
appeared that the Chief Minister has little to worry
as the squabbling within the smaller alliance
partner the BJP is not going to harm him much. In
fact he thought that weaker the BJP the better it
would be for him to run the government smoothly. A
section of Janata Dal (United) always wanted to
distance itself from the BJP. The refusal to enter
into an alliance with it in Karnataka, where assembly
election is round the corner, can be cited as an
example. The Janata Dal United President, Sharad
Yadav, recently threatened to quit the NDA if the BJP
does not change its stand on certain issues. Its
national spokesman, Shivanand Tiwary, strongly opposed
the Gujarat Model being projected by Lal Krishna
Advani for the next Parliamentary election. He
pooh-poohed chief minister Narendra Modi's claim of
developing Gujarat on the plea that his state was
already among the well-developed states of the
country.
In alliance politics the major partner always wants
the minor partner to remain weak and in that way the
infighting within the BJP was suiting Nitish Kumar.
But resignation of the recently sacked
Building Construction Minister, Monazir Hassan, from
the post of state vice president of the Janata Dal
(United) came as a shock to him. A day after dropping
him and nine other ministers from the cabinet Nitish
made Monazir and seven others as the vice president of
the party. The plea was that they would strengthen the
organization. But three days later Monazir quit.
It would be premature to say whether his resignation
would affect the party or not but there is no denying
the fact that Monazir was the only Muslim minister of
the Rabri cabinet who quit the RJD government well
ahead of the 2005 assembly election and joined the
Janata Dal (United). Unlike Manzar Alam, another
minister to be dropped by Nitish, he has some
political clout and was projected as the Muslim face
of the Janata Dal (United).
Unlike the BJP, where many MLAs are openly speaking
against the leadership, in the Janata Dal (United)
Monazir became the first MLA to raise the banner of
revolt. Though Monazir is not speaking too much what
appeared to have offended him was the manner in which
the chief minister had fixed the quota of two
ministers for Muslims. Monazir and Manzar were
replaced by Shahid Ali Khan and Jamshed Ashraf.
Political observers are now saying that in the 15
years of Lalu-Rabri Raj not a single Muslim minister
was sacked. Be it Ghulam Sarwar or Monazir Hassan or
anyone else they resigned on their own after political
differences and not dismissed on the plea that they
were not performing well.
So while the BJP is neck-deep in trouble in Bihar and
finding it extremely difficult to come out of the
crisis everything is not hunky-dory for the Janata Dal
(United) too. Much now depends on the political
maturity of Nitish Kumar. Better administrator does
not always mean better politician. Similarly the BJP
too will have to realize that it can no longer remain
a cumbersome baggage for the Janata Dal (United) to
carry.
