Nitish’s support for Kovind part of larger gameplan

The chief advocate for a grand alliance against the BJP, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday joined the ruling coalition’s swelling ranks by backing their presidential nominee, Ram Nath Kovind.

The decision of the JD(U), whose President Kumar is, has apparently been conveyed to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who is hosting a meeting of Opposition leaders on Thursday to decide on a challenger to Kovind.

Kumar was the first to float the idea of a united Opposition during the Presidential polls, as a prelude to the formation of a Grand Alliance before the next Lok Sabha polls in 2019.

Party MP KC Tyagi said the decision to support Kovind was taken because “his tenure as Bihar Governor has been peaceful”.

Earlier, party MLA Ratnesh Sada said in Patna that the Chief Minister had already informed all the legislators about his move. “The Chief Minister told us that the JD(U) will support Kovind’s candidature in the presidential election as he is a good man. There were about 60 JD(U) MLAs present in the meeting and they echoed the CM’s view.”

This is the surest sign of growing bonhomie between Nitish Kumar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose election as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in 2013 had led to the Bihar Chief Minister severing ties with the BJP, its ally of 17 years. However, in recent times, Kumar has broken ranks with the Opposition to support Modi’s much-criticised decision to demonetise high-value currency, and was full of praise for the Centre’s surgical strikes on Pakistan. The PM had reciprocated by publicly endorsing Kumar’s anti-liquor policy in Bihar.

While the JD(U) maintains that this indicates nothing more than “issue-based support”, the Bihar CM is not known to send signals without a fire. The purpose behind his apparent cosiness with Modi, because of whom Nitish once refused to attend a dinner party and finally left the NDA, is more complex.

The first objective is to indicate his growing distance from alliance partner Lalu Prasad, who is increasingly being isolated politically because of multiple scams involving his family. On Wednesday, when Nitish announced his support for the BJP’s Presidential nominee, Lalu’s daughter Misa Bharti was questioned for seven hours by the Income Tax Department.

In the event that Lalu gets too mired in controversies, the decision to back Kovind paves the way for Nitish’s “ ghar vapsi ” to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

The second reason is the Bihar CM’s assessment of the popular support that the PM’s various decisions have evoked. Demonetisation was backed by people and interpreted as a “pro-poor” move during the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, which the BJP won with a huge majority.