Ideological infidelity is not a rare affliction among career politicians. Power, wealth and the many vices that often motivate political actors are not unfamiliar to Indian voters. Even by these low standards, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar appears to be plumbing new depths with his recurrent somersaults. He has changed partners multiple times, with little more reasoning than satisfying his desire for power. Mr. Kumar’s about-turn in 2017 betrayed the mandate of 2015 and in 2022, he betrayed the mandate of 2020. In 2020, Mr. Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) had won the election in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but two years later he broke from it to form an alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress. That was a clear insult of the mandate. He has now made yet another turn, this time returning to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Within the day, he resigned as Chief Minister, claimed the post again with new partners, and was sworn-in again as Chief Minister. Only a few weeks ago, Mr. Kumar was fashioning himself as the leader of the anti-BJP Opposition alliance. It might be true that politics makes for strange bedfellows, but Mr. Kumar has turned his acts of disloyalty into a familiar script. Meanwhile, his claim of being a champion of good governance appears so distant in the past, and completely unfamiliar.
Until the moment of the turnaround, the BJP was loudly proclaiming that it would never again align with Mr. Kumar and the JD(U). There is no explanation from either side on their sudden change of heart. Mr. Kumar had tried to corner the BJP on the question of caste, in alliance with the RJD and the Congress. The socio-economic survey of castes in Bihar that his previous government ordered did not turn out to be a watershed moment as Mr. Kumar perhaps hoped. At the same time, the BJP felt insecure enough to look for a rapprochement with the JD(U), which commands considerable following among non-Yadav Other Backward Classes in Bihar. The opening of the Ram temple in Ayodhya marked a new phase of Hindu consolidation behind the BJP, but the party is always watching out for erosion triggered by caste mobilisation. By redrafting Mr. Kumar, the BJP has defanged the limited potency that was left in his social justice politics. The BJP is the biggest beneficiary of the realignment in Bihar, while the biggest loser might be Mr. Kumar himself. His political base is being raided, and his legacy stands besmirched. But, he is still the Chief Minister, and nothing else seems to matter to him. It is not exactly future perfect, but it is happily present continuous.
