Traditionally its called 'swallowing own pride', wags call him Paltu Ram - Nitish Kumar does not mind as long as the going is good ... But maybe he has reached the last stage this time !

“I have made a study of men’s faces when they have lost something of material value. The greedy man shows panic, the rich man shows anger...

(Extracts from a short story by Ruskin Bond)

If politics is full of stories of strange bedfellows, Nitish Kumar's politics is a big saga of pragmatism and a wonderful mix of sheer opportunism and stories of betrayal and changing loyalties.

He is called Mr Paltu Ram - rather effortlessly, but such descriptions hardly seemed to bother the man himself.

Moreover, his one-upmanship has left other key stakeholders in Bihar including his 'personal friend' Sushil Kumar Modi anguished and exasperated. Nitish has over-used or rather abused his Kurmi caste card so much that it may not be surprising to believe today that both the BJP and the RJD of Lalu Pradsad would want that Nitish be shown the door. 

And he is thrown out or made irrelevant in the political equation of Bihar. 

A senior BJP leader, who has known Nitish Kumar closely, says, "We are not surprised by his irritating style of politics and naked opportunism. But this time he is on borrowed time. There is anger everywhere. People are fed up everywhere".

Nitish truly reflects the definition - in politics there can be no permanent friend or foe; but having done it repeatedly the grace of his 'honest image and the image of 'Su-sashan babu (Mr Good Governance)'  is now gone.

His exit may harm I.N.D.I alliance and the Congress; but will it really help BJP in the eyes of saffron party's die-hard admirers and support base remains to be seen.   

Nitish Kumar in 2005 was the Man, Bihar wanted, the 'man' who freed ‘Bihar’ from Lalu Yadav’s fiefdom

In the times to come, the seasoned socialist leader Nitish Kumar will of course best remembered as a man who ousted onetime fellow socialist Lalu Prasad Yadav, ending the latter’s 15-year long monopolistic rule over the governance-starved state of Bihar.

 

But Kumar’s ascendancy to the coveted office in country’s renowned “badly-governed” state was not an easy cakewalk. For long, Bihar’s nosedive decline in development graph, pathetic roads and unemployment proved only a metropolitan myth as Lalu Yadav continued to hold sway for 15 years cashing in on with his imperishable Muslim and Yadav (fondly called MY) cards.

But it goes to the credit of Kumar that as a Janata Dal (United) leader, he maintained good harmonious working relations with ‘Hindu chauvinist’ BJP and kept his socialistic image intact presenting himself as a follower of George Fernandes; and thus in the end he could muster support from all concerned to register a landslide victory in November 2005. His poll managers had just aptly discovered a slogan ‘Naya (New) Bihar – Nitish Kumar’. Five years later, he again returned to power. 

Nitish 'betrayal' is Rahul 'creation' ??

But in 2013 when Rajnath Singh as BJP president named Narendra Modi the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Nitish dumped BJP and quickly embraced Lalu Prasad. In 2015, Nitish could humble BJP but by 2017, he again thought of ditching Lalu. Even this honeymoon did not last long, he brought in Lalu's son as deputy CM. 

Now, Bihar is yet again getting ready for a solemn swearing in ceremony with probably Nitish as Chief Minister. Of course the BJP is still driving a hard bargain. Some BJP MLAs and even MPs say chief ministership should come to the saffron party. Nitish will not settle for anything like that at this point. 

Born on March 1, 1951, Bakhtiar, he was first elected to the Bihar assembly in 1985. In 1987 he became president of Yuva Lok Dal and in 1989 the secretary general of refurbished Janata Dal in 1989. He also won the parliamentary polls into the 9th Lok Sabha and became Union Minister of State for Agriculture under prime minister V P Singh.

But his subsequent rise have come pretty fast comparatively. In 1991, he was re-elected to the Lok Sabha and became General Secretary of the Janata Dal at the national level and also the deputy leader of Janata Dal in Parliament. He represented Barh parliamentary constituency (Bihar) in the Lok Sabha between 1989 and 2004. When the tussle of leadership surfaced in Janata Dal between ace socialist Goerge Fernandes and Sharad Yadav, Kumar backed Fernandes and together they floated Samata Party, which also joined BJP-led larger conglomertion NDA. 

Nitish Kumar served as the Union Minister for Railways and Minister for Surface Transport and then as the Agriculture Minister under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. 

Sensitive to his image factor, in August 1999, Kamar had resigned following the railway accident at Gaisal -something done many years back by Lal Bahadur Shastri.

In 2000, under a much controversial circumstances and open support from the NDA government in the centre, Kumar became Chief Minister but had to quit within 7 days as he did not have the numbers. He came back to Centre as Vajpayee’s Agriculture Minister. 

From 2001 to May 2004, he served as the Railway Minister again in the NDA government of Vajpayee. 

Though as the Railway Minister he is credited for various projects and especially for creating a definite fund for ensuring greater safety on Railway tracks, his tenure as Railway Minister would also be marred by the worst ever accident on the track as on February 27, 2002, the ill-fated coach S 6 of Sabarmati Express set ablaze at Godhra in Gujarat.

In the context of popularity vis-a-vis 2024 polls, of course Narendra Modi’s electoral prospects will further boost; but there are tales, anecdotes and a number interesting episodes related to both Modi and Nitish Kumar.

* 1. In 2013 when Narendra Modi addressed a rally in Patna while the turnout was huge owing to Modi's popularity, there were blasts in the city and in the stadium. Nitish Kumar, who till the other day tried to offer himself in the political citadel as an administrative messiah, could not manage the show well as the state's Chief Minister --- who is responsible for state's law and order.

-- Many attributed this to Nitish's pathological dislike for Modi and strng influence of jealousy -- which definitely go well with a man's image who is otherwise ambitious to become India's Prime Minister. 

Bihar police and NIA investigations later only confirmed that the target of the explosions on that eventful day was Modi himself. “Two of the accused in the blasts were to act as human bombs and detonate themselves in front of the dais from where Modi was to deliver speech,” sources said adding the plans failed as one of the bombs exploded while being fitted with a timer at a public toilet at the railway station.

None other than Patna’s senior superintendent of police, Manu Maharaj said that the bombings at the Gandhi Maidan planned at Ranchi were “intended to cause a stampede leading to maximum casualties”.  

Now in the ultimate, disgruntlement is growing as several sitting Lok Sabha MPs of JD-U and the state legislators are unhappy at the manner Nitish imposed the divorce with RJD.