Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s dramatic resignation on Wednesday evening on the grounds that he could no longer tolerate the presence of his deputy, Tejashwi Yadav, against whom there are allegations of corruption, in his Ministry was not entirely unexpected.
His actions in recent months — supporting demonetisation and his backing the BJP-led NDA’s presidential candidate, Ram Nath Kovind, to name just two — had already made the rest of the Opposition wary about his intentions.
Nevertheless, his resignation — and his accompanying remarks about the RJD – delivered a body blow to the Opposition unity that was being gradually forged by 18 parties to challenge the BJP, ahead of the 2019 general elections and, indeed, to the possibility of Mr. Kumar emerging as the leader of this group and as a possible prime ministerial candidate.
The Congress that was part of the grand coalition in Bihar — in which the RJD, the JD(U) were the larger parties — that routed the BJP in the Bihar polls in 2015, appears to have read Mr. Kumar’s action as one calculated to subvert Opposition unity: after all, the cases that Mr. Kumar has referred to were in existence when he had forged a pre-poll alliance with the RJD and become CM.
The BJP swiftly moved in, praising Mr. Kumar’s action, and giving its letter of support to a government headed by him, giving the appearance of a “scripted” sequence of events, as a Congress leader from Bihar said.
Congress ‘disappointed’
Indeed, in an official statement, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala read out a carefully nuanced statement. Saying the party was “deeply disappointed” by the resignation of Mr. Kumar for whom the Congress, particularly its president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi have high regard for, he pointed out that the mahagathbandhan had been given a five-year mandate by the people on the basis of “its policies and collective leadership” and because it had opposed the ideology and leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Congress, he said, would try and fill the breach in the coalition so that the government could complete its five-year term.