Only time will tell whether the February 26 induction, on Maha Shivratri, of seven Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators as ministers in Bihar at the instance of saffron party’s central leadership was really an astute political move or not. Yet, it is a fact that in the recent past, sometimes such hasty and poorly planned decisions have proved counterproductive and exposed the panic within the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). It is another thing that the media had always hailed them as masterstrokes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Whatever may be the political objective, the inclusion of two upper caste, two backward caste and three extremely backward caste MLAs into the cabinet just eight months before the Assembly election in the state has raised an uncomfortable question.
Now the critics are asking why there were none from Dalit castes, Yadav and women, not to speak of Muslim, in the list of seven additions. After all, there are no Yadavs and only two Dalit ministers from the BJP quota, which now stands at 21.
Actually, it is the contraction of political options for NDA which compelled Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to go for an expansion of his cabinet.
Uneasy relationship
The sudden dropping of Bihar BJP president, Dilip Jaiswal from the cabinet just before the expansion revealed that everything is not hunky-dory within the Janata Dal (United)-BJP alliance. After all, the state chief of the saffron party deserved a better treatment. It reminded one of June 16, 2013, when Nitish Kumar kicked out the 11 BJP ministers from his team and snapped the 17-year-long relationship with the saffron party.
Although Jaiswal claimed that he had himself resigned as revenue and land reforms minister on the plea that one person should hold only one post, there is hardly any taker of his argument.
Also read: Why Bihar Will Not Go the Delhi Way
Ironically, Jaiswal had done so just after his meeting with the BJP national president J.P. Nadda, who himself is holding two posts – he is also a cabinet minister in the Modi government. Besides, just hours before the cabinet expansion, Jaiswal was reminded about this fact when the truth is that he succeeded Samrat Chaudhary as the state party president on July 25, 2024.
Some media reports suggest that Nitish had put the sacking of Jaiswal as a precondition for accepting the BJP central leadership’s ‘instruction’ to expand the cabinet. The chief minister was reportedly upset over Jaiswal’s alleged decision to extend the deadline of a land survey from March 2025 to July 2026 without Nitish’s consent.
As a result, in a single stroke, the chief minister cut Jaiswal to size while also sending a strong message to the BJP.
Hard bargainer
Whatever be the truth, the unceremonious exit of Jaiswal is bound to sore relationships within the rank and file of both the major constituents of the NDA. Nitish is a hard bargainer and may not budge from his claim of 122 seats JD(U) contested in the 2020 Assembly election. Though his party could win only 43 of them, he would be quick to cite the example of the 2024 Lok Sabha poll in which both the JD(U) and BJP won 12 seats each when they fielded candidates on 16 constituencies each.
The cabinet expansion took place just two days after Modi’s February 24 visit to Bhagalpur and a day after President Droupadi Murmu’s presence as the chief guest of centenary celebration of Patna Medical College and Hospital. On the night of February 25, Nadda held a meeting of the BJP leaders in Bihar’s capital.
This hectic development for BJP came at the time when the chorus to bring Nitish’s son Nishant into politics seems to be growing louder. Interestingly, even the leader of opposition in the Bihar Assembly, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, has welcomed Nishant’s entry, though he had repeatedly said that the time for Uncle Nitish is over.
Also read: By Asserting That His Father Should be Named CM Candidate, Nitish’s Son Has Derailed Modi’s Plans
Tejashwi knows that once Nishant succeeds his father, the BJP and JD(U) will automatically lose the opportunity to attack the family/dynasty politics of Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress.
Missteps of 2024
BJP’s challenge is that it has never come to power on its own in Bihar. It is here that its strategy has backfired several times in the past.
For example, on January 23 last year, when Modi announced Bharat Ratna to former Bihar chief minister Karpoori Thakur, his decision was hailed as a masterstroke by the media. This decision had prompted Nitish’s homecoming to the NDA.
However, the truth is that this so-called smart move had a detrimental impact on the overall performance of the NDA throughout India in the Lok sabha poll held in the summer of 2024.
The NDA might have won 30 out of 40 seats – though down from 39 in 2019 – but the fact is that until Ram Mandir consecration on January 22, most pre-poll surveys had been giving it something between 22 and 28 seats. So, Nitish’s return only marginally improved the tally in the state.
In contrast, the announcement of Bharat Ratna just a day after January 22 consecration in Ayodhya completely shifted the attention of the national media to Bihar. As if that was not enough, the Enforcement Directorate arrested Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren on January 31.
From January 23 till the end of the election campaign period, BJP failed to maintain the same momentum on Ram Mandir as it had been doing till the consecration ceremony. Once that was gone, it became a tough task to perform better even in Uttar Pradesh, where it eventually lost the Ayodhya seat too.
In the absence of the Ram Mandir wave, the saffron party fared badly in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Haryana.
Had Karpoori Thakur not been given Bharat Ratna at that point of time – he could have been honoured later – the BJP would certainly have romped back to power on its own by claiming that it has fulfilled the promise to build Ram Mandir. But nobody in the saffron party or the media pointed out as to why the party suddenly changed gear on January 23.
Humiliation in Jharkhand
Similarly, the BJP might have come back to power in Jharkhand in November 2024 had the party top brass not committed a series of blunders.
The first mistake was the arrest of Hemant Soren, which had an impact on the Lok Sabha poll in which the saffron party lost all the five Scheduled Tribes (ST) reserved seats in the state to the JMM-Congress alliance.
Then, in August, the BJP hastily took into its fold Champai Soren, the man whom Hemant Soren made chief minister when he went to jail. This move boomeranged and the party suffered the biggest defeat ever since the creation of the state. The 26.2% Adivasi votes turned away from the party.
Shortly after, this was followed by the allegations of Bangladeshi men ‘forcing’ marriages to tribal women. This was a totally thoughtless decision for which the BJP had to pay dearly.
On November 15, 2024, the birth anniversary of Adivasi icon Birsa Munda, Prime Minister Modi announced projects worth over Rs 6,640 crore for tribals. As the two-phase election was still underway in Jharkhand (November 13 and 20), the BJP chose a bordering village in Bihar’s Jamui district to hold this function.
All these exercises further antagonised the tribals who felt that the BJP was taking them for granted.
Now, if the BJP is thinking that the induction of seven new ministers in Bihar would yield a positive result for the NDA, it would be expecting too much. In fact, average voters are now questioning why these ministerial posts were lying vacant for more than a year.
Soroor Ahmed is a Patna-based freelance journalist.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
