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| Edited By: Raghav Chopra |Source: DNA webdesk |Updated: Jul 27, 2017, 02:45 PM IST
Nitish Kumar’s resignation and then his return as Bihar Chief Minister once again proves that politics makes strange bedfellows.
Here are five quotes from the TV series House Of Cards that perfectly capture the power drama currently underway in Bihar.
(Season 2, Episode 9)
Nitish Kumar in the run up to the Bihar assembly elections had launched a ‘Take Back Your Words’ campaign after Narendra Modi questioned his ‘political DNA.’ Nitish asked the people of Bihar to send DNA samples to the Prime Minister to show him what a true son of Bihar is made of — over 50,000 responded.
Nitish Kumar hasn’t held back on his attacks against PM Modi or the RSS. In Modi’s parliamentary constituency, Varanasi. Nitish Kumar had raised a clarion call for a ‘RSS mukt Bharat.’ This was May 2016. July 2017, and Nitish has formed a government with the support of Narendra Modi and the BJP. Hypocrisy or politics? Maybe they are one and the same thing.
(Season 1, Episode 1)
Well, there is no higher source of power than the Prime Minister’s office. Being in the good books of the Centre is never a bad thing for a Chief Minister. In May, this year, Nitish Kumar snubbed Sonia Gandhi to attend a luncheon with PM Modi. The occasion was to greet the Mauritius Prime Minister but Nitish made it clear that it was very much a working
lunch for Bihar’s ‘Sushasan Babu.’ He told media persons that he had raised the issue of desilting of Ganga and it was also reported that he talked about the relief package he had sought in August 2016. Nitish Kumar is a smart man. He understands that the only real alternative to having power yourself is to have powerful allies.
(Season 2, Episode 2)
Nitish Kumar never liked sharing power with Lalu Prasad. It was an uneasy coalition from the beginning and most expected it to end prematurely. Nitish has very carefully cultivated his image of being a clean administrator with little tolerance for corruption. Why then did he join forces with Lalu, a convicted politician who was barred from
contesting elections thanks to a Supreme Court ruling? At the time Nitish used the secular card to justify the tie-up. It was necessary to keep out a bigger evil. But whichever way you look at it, it was a compromise. And compromises rarely last.
Nitish needed an excuse, and it was given by Tejashwi Yadav. Nitish gave the Rashtriya Janata Dal 4 days to come clean on allegations of corruption, but as soon as it was ruled out by Lalu, Nitish had got an excuse to pull the rug from under the veteran politician’s feet.
(Season 3, Episode 13)
It took Nitish just about 16 hours to crush Lalu Prasad’s ambitions of building some grand alliance against Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Lalu knows his career as a politician is nearing its end. He can no longer take office thanks to a 2013 conviction by the special CBI court in a case related to the fodder scam. His ambition now is to see his son Tejashwi make a mark in national politics. The portfolio of deputy chief minister for a 28-year old is a big step up and an opportunity to showcase his skills as an administrator. Alas he must now wait.
(Season 1, Episode 9)
With 80 MLAs behind him, Lalu Prasad Yadav would have thought that he holds the reins of the Bihar government. Despite outscoring Janata Dal United in the assembly elections, shrewdly Lalu made Nitish Kumar the chief minister. The plan was to make Tejashwi Yadav a chief ministerial intern so next term he could command the top post in the state. Delusionally Lalu believed that he was in command when Nitish Kumar was in-fact the one controlling the coalition all along. The one who breaks the relationship is the one who controls it.
