RCP factor: In Bihar The Shoe is on the other foot now

Mumbai: Recently expelled Janta Dal (Secular) spokesperson Dr Ajay Alok’s tweet on Sunday pulled up his former party Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar for failing to attend the meeting of the Regulatory Council of Niti Ayog convened by Indian PM Narendra Modi. “Will not go to the meeting of PM’s NITI Aayog because “Nash Kumar” has (just) come out of Corona, but will go to other ceremonies, hold meetings of MPs, even openly sing words of Lalu ji. The season of reversal has come and every single day Kumar remains in power is taking Bihar back by 1-1 years,” Dr Alok tweeted. A day before JD(S) Rajya Sabha member RCP Singh and Union Minister, till a few days back, resigned his party affiliation after first being denied a fresh Rajya Sabha tenure (after July 7) and then having a case under Disproportionate Assets launched against him by CM Nitish Kumar who directed state’s Anti-Corruption Bureau to probe it.

RCP Singh has now demanded that a similar DA probe be initiated by the CBI against CM Kumar, his long-time political ally and friend from their younger days. Both politicians belong to the same Kurmi caste of the influential agriculturist community of Bihar Very surprisingly, Laloo Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), that matched Nitish’s politics step for step in the recent agitations over Agneepath and demands for special status for Bihar, maintained a stoic silence over RCP ’s exit from the JD(S). Yadav probably is hoping that Singh may join up with his party and bring an important caste dynamic along with him to RJD under Laloo that was the originator of the Muslim-Yadav political gambit in India (along with Mulayam Singh Yadav). For the BJP this is poetic justice after having witnessed its own deputy CM in Bihar, Sushil Modi, who despite being in the BJP had forged too close ties with Nitish Kumar in the erstwhile Bihar government. Subsequently the BJP did not repeat him as DCM although it went along with Kumar’s leadership in the state although he had fewer MLAs to show.

Modi was first disempowered and the right to pick BJP MLA candidates in Bihar taken away from him before he was kicked upstairs to New Delhi by PM Modi. With the RCP chapter playing out in Bihar, the BJP feels the shoe is on the other foot now and will tacitly encourage Singh to battle it out with Nitish to the latter’s political detriment or, if he chooses to exit the alliance, whichever comes first.