Jubilee Post News & Views
Utkarsh Sinha
The Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is gradually getting to know the threats for him that can trouble during the forthcoming Bihar elections. Nitish wone election as an alliance of the UPA but ever since he entered in to the NDA the pressure tactics between Nitish and the BJP has started.
Though it is not for the first time that Nitish and BJP have done an agreement but this time it is a changed BJP and Nitish too has diversified challenges before him. Nitish now has in his front some youth faces instead of the contemporary like Lalu Yadav and these youth leaders are well versed in the changed and modern political strategies. Also these issues Nitish needs to win over against BJP are there for him.
Ever since Nitish went with NDA leaving UPA, a question was doing rounds that how far will Nitish stay in front of aggressive politics of Amit Shah? But Nitish managed to skip that question by avoiding to go as a part of the union cabinet. After this the BJP has got strong impact from the defeat in states and also due to the jerk given by the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. Amit Shah had to formally announce that Bihar election will have Nitish Kumar as the CM face. This should be considered as victory for Nitish.
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But after this there are difficulties for Nitish. The biggest among them are citizenship amendment law and NPR. These two issues, became so big that Nitish had differences with his political strategist Prashant Kishore and he separated from Nitish finally.
Prashant is now running a campaign ‘Bihar ki Baat’ and the issue in the campaign is development of Bihar. Obviously the development issue has given challenge to NItish.
Now we return to CAA and NPR. When Nitish gave support to Modi government over CAA several big leaders of his own party became angry with him but Nitish did not changed his stand. He tough is not supporting NRC.
Last month also Nitish has said there is no question about the national register for citizens (NRC) as this was only for Assam and even PM Modi has clarified this. Now again Nitish is reiterating this.
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Nitish has said that NRC will not be implemented in Bihar and even if does it will not be in the new shape. NRC is a big issue for the BJP. PM has said he wont move back on it and Nitish refused to move ahead.
Senior journalist Kumar Bhavesh Chandara on this says that it is significant for Nitish to save Muslim votes. He knows that going with BJP will make Muslims votes go away from him. And this will benefit the opposition. This will adversely effect Nitish’s image. Nitish has once again started the caste population issue and this equation has brought BJP on the backfoot.
In the coming days there can be change in the union cabinet and the BJP will want to include Nitish’s party in to it. Now it will be interesting to see what Nitish does. In the entire episode it is clear that NDA’s bet is depending upon Nitish and this is understood by them clearly. Nitish will then not allow the BJP to overpower. Hence the Nitish Kumar side is weighing heavier.
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