Nitish Kumar
In a high voltage political drama, Bihar’s former Chief Minister Nitish Kumar planned a coup against his own party’s ruling Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi. Under the leadership of Mr. Nitish Kumar, Janata Dal United (JDU) has expelled its own CM from the party. And now, Mr. Kumar will soon claim to form the next government against his own party’s government. Interestingly enough, eight months ago, on 17th May 2014, Nitish Kumar had resigned, only a day after his party’s poor showing in the Lok Sabha election. The JDU had managed to get just 2 seats out of 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state of Bihar. Kumar then hand-picked Jitan Ram Manjhi with two purposes: Firstly, to woo Maha-Dalit voters; secondly, to run a remote controlled government using Jitan Ram Manjhi as its puppet.
Incidentally, Nitish Kumar’s tryst with the CM’s post closely resembled that of Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, who has done a similar round about for the CM’s post in the national capital region. With outside unconditional support from the Congress Party, Aam Adami Party (AAP)’s government was constituted under the leadership of Arvind Kejriwal. After a mere 49 day stint, Kejriwal resigned. AAP gave the alibi of not being able to pass the anti-graft Jan Lokpal Bill in the Delhi Assembly. President’s rule was imposed in Delhi and Mr. Kejriwal put his entire energy and resources to fight against BJP’s then Prime-ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. But as soon as Kejriwal was declared as miserably defeated, he came back to Delhi and since then, he is trying to be Delhi’s chief minister once more. The cost of the Delhi elections was almost Rs. 500 Crores which was imposed on the people of Delhi within a year. As per Election Commission estimates, around Rs. 160 Crores was spent by candidates alone during this re-election.
It was a clear case of political opportunism being professed by Arvind Kejriwal. But he not only managed to get away with it, but was also strongly supported by all the other parties for his next attempt to attain power. With a strong syndicate in main stream media, Kejriwal running away without proper reasons and coming back without any further reasons was just never seen as an issue in Delhi Elections. In fact, this opportunism was celebrated with his convenient twists, while MSM kept its target on BJP’s CM candidate Mrs Kiran Bedi. Such cover-up can be explained by desperation of the routed Congress Party, Communist Party and their Lutyens support system in the national capital region after the Lok Sabha elections. They all unconditionally support Kejriwal through every means to stop BJP in winning Delhi.
Nonetheless, Kejriwal became the epitome of opportunism in electoral politics. He did everything, against which he claimed moral position of a crusader: Black money for the party fund, giving tickets to criminals, and an AAP candidate was caught with a huge cache of liquor during the elections. Nitish Kumar is another MufflerMan (Arvind Kejriwal) of Bihar. First, he ran away from the responsibility of CM. Now, he wants it back at any cost. Just like Kejriwal, Nitish Kumar is doing the same as he took moral responsibility of his party’s defeat in Lok Sabha elections. That defeat is not undone yet, but he is back to claim the CM post in Bihar.
When Indian democracy was already suffering from many shortcomings including castesim, nepotism, criminalization, communalization and corruption, opportunism adds-on an additional misery to it. Politics without value amounts to a crime against a democracy. A democracy relies on the faith of people, it must not be allowed to be taken hostage by a gang of ideologues who participate in democracy just to grab power.
By Amit Srivastava ( @AmiSri )
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