Politic | Nitish Kumar and the BJP’s Self-Defeatism
Attempts to appear clever usually look stupid. Nobody understands this better than a politician who is organically shrewd. And who fits the bill of being organically shrewd more than Nitish Kumar? Among the rare species in the political realm, he is the only one who can be made the chief minister by both the ruling and the opposition alliances. And he has been this clever for decades.
Fake Chanakyas, artificially constructed by sycophants in the media and the party, should carefully choose what they say in this battlefield. The real Chanakya will anyway know the difference between a greenhorn like Eknath Shinde and seasoned player like Nitish Kumar. Nitish Kumar’s attempts to look gullible do not mean he is not clever. History tells the world, and Amit Shah, that Nitish does not need TV anchors to advertise his masterstrokes. Victims of his quiet, delicate masterstrokes lie scattered across the country – from Lalu Yadav to Rahul Gandhi, and from the late George Fernandes to Narendra Modi. Echoes of this enigmatic political truism must have reached Gujarat: elections in Bihar too are held to decide who will be the Leader of Opposition, not the chief minister. The crown is reserved for the somersault specialist of Indian political sport.
Amit Shah might have bitten off more than he could chew by evolving an explicit strategy of keeping Nitish on the tenterhooks. Prime Minister Narendra Modi refused to announce his name as the next chief minister when he uttered this slogan: “Nai raftaar se chalega Bihar/Fir aayegi NDA sarkar (Bihar will move at a new pace now/the NDA government will return).” This is a radical shift from “Bihar mein bahaar hai/Nitishe Kumar hai (It's spring in Bihar/Here comes Nitish Kumar).” The BJP, which preferred a Modi-centric campaign in the parliamentary election, is clearly averse to projecting Nitish’s leadership. They presume that the wily chief minister had been completely brought under control with the help of BJP agents in the Janata Dal (United); and the enervated warrior was no more in a position to hit back. Political grapevine contests this presumption, insisting that Nitish Kumar was capable of protecting his crown despite physical frailties. He will demolish all ploys of installing a new chief minister by leveraging his intimacy with Lalu Yadav. Post-poll options may be delinked from pre-poll acrobatics.
The strategy to remove Nitish will work only if an alternative government – JD(U) becoming a part of a Rashtriya Janata Dal-led alliance – is not possible. Neither the RJD, nor the JD(U), are making vicious attacks on each other. The tenor of the JD(U) campaign is entirely different from the BJP’s strident “jungle-raj” narrative.
Nitish has an added advantage this time, his critical prop to Modi at the Union government. It is unlikely that the BJP will risk a disruption at this stage. All this calculations will come into play only if Tejashwi Yadav again fails to cross the majority mark. Ground reality suggests it’s a tough competition, made tougher as the Congress has again messed up the ticket distribution exercise. How the campaign unfolds will be the key to success.
Hollow rhetoric
Who likes to live in a fool’s paradise? Difficult to answer. But the prime minister must not dream of an India where fools forget their wretched existence at the faint hope of a paradise. Life, after all, is driven by reality, not dreams.
“Fast-moving Vande Bharat trains now run in Bihar,” Narendra Modi proudly said while addressing a rally on the afternoon of October 24 in Samastipur. Speed thrills, the little bird told us. Haven’t the trains of Japan and China, running at 350 km per hour, fascinated us? But does Vande Bharat, barely touching 130 km per hour, instil any sense of pride into Indians?
Well, facts must be spiced up with fiction if they are not tantalising enough. The prime minister hastened to add: “The day is not far when every district of Bihar will have startup companies owned by its youth.” That drew some applause from the crowd that has learnt to live with the hoax of Rs 15 lakh gushing into everybody’s account.
In this image released on Oct. 24, 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a public meeting ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections, in Begusarai district. Photo: PTI.
I hope the valiant prime minister of three terms, itching to break Jawaharlal Nehru’s track record, succeeded in explaining the developments Bihar had witnessed in the last two decades. If there was any trace of doubt, Modi delivered more tempting details on a platter. “The tea-seller has ensured 1 GB data doesn’t cost more than a cup of tea! The glut of reels being made in Bihar shows the creativity of the youth.”
Wonderful! Doubting Thomases can go to sleep now. Time for celebration, nay, some drama.
Modi asked people to switch on the torch of their mobile phones. He declared: “Jab itni light hai to lalten chahiye kya (When there are so many lights, do we really need the lantern)?” The punchline was delivered in style. The lantern, the symbol of the main challenger RJD, has to be discarded if phones come with an inbuilt torch. What more political foresight and vision do you want? This time, no bhains, no mangalsutra, no mujra. Political scientists and pretenders shall rejoice, showering praises on the powerful oratory.
But the prime minister was in a sober mood. He even lamented the acerbic metaphors his opponents were using in the campaign, saying that they have started speaking of pellets, pistols, double barrel guns and kidnappings. Very bad. Learn from the BJP leaders’ decency. "Suna hai bole to baaton se phool jhadte hain (I have heard that when you speak, flowers fall from your words)," as the great poet Ahmad Faraz wrote.
Words are indeed falling softly like flower petals. BJP president J.P. Nadda, for instance, said: “R means Rangdari. J means Jungle raj. D means Dadagiri. RJD means criminality, destruction and mis-governance.”
That’s the BJP’s shield against anti-incumbency. Modi has insisted that the “jungle-raj” won’t be forgotten for 100 years. The discourse shall remain frozen. Chants of “jungle-raj” offer insurance against accountability of the incumbent government. Don’t pay heed to the fiction that Bihar is crying for jobs, and other basic amenities like education and healthcare.
Enjoy the speed of bullet trains. Sorry, that’s for Gujarat.
Industries? For Gujarat.
You got the Vande Bharat. Travel and speed up the exodus.
Media and its deceit
Screams for survival must not be taken as songs of penance. Many talk of honesty in desperation to mislead. It’s not a quest for redemption; it's merely a new venture of deceit.
One of the protagonists of today's mainstream media has generated much curiosity by arguing that people are not watching news channels because their core concerns are not reflected in reports and debates. Innocent observers wonder whether the habitual offender has undergone a change of heart. No. This was a devious ploy to lessen the enormity of their crime. Such characters, who have inflicted the most grievous injuries on Indian journalism, now want to create an impression that it is elite media houses who have often ignored the problems of the masses, and focused on politicking, intrigues and bogus controversies. It is known that often, not even 1% of news items printed or shown in a day cover rural issues. And when the rural areas do make it to the news, the majority is related to natural calamity, crimes and unnatural deaths. Even rains and traffic jams in Delhi or Mumbai get much greater prominence than serious agrarian distress or humanitarian crises in villages. But that is not the reason for the unprecedented disenchantment of people, irrespective of class and creed, with mainstream media.
People don’t watch news channels because they have smothered journalistic ethics and became brutal agents of power. People don’t watch news channels because editors and anchors suppress truth and propagate the government agenda. People don’t watch news channels because they spit venom, perpetually dividing society on religious lines and whip up passions instead of acting as unifiers. People don’t watch TV channels because constitutional principles are callously trampled upon with the sole objective of fortifying the rulers’ interest. Their choice of subjects and arguments fall in the category of moral turpitude and intellectual bankruptcy. People obviously don’t want to digest sermons from those accused of extortion and blackmail.
What is tragic for the nation is that this perverse media enjoys the government’s patronage. The media where equality and justice are not the guiding principle, the media which does not value truth and morality is doomed to aid the destruction of the nation and society. Terror outfits have very limited impact and damage potential. They also face stringent laws and the ferocious power of the state. But the media can spread the poison of hate to a much larger audience on a daily basis without fearing the coercive elements of law-enforcing agencies. People who don’t like the media to act like a partner-in-crime have deserted news channels. They are searching for safer sources of information. Little wonder, news portals and Youtube channels are attracting millions of viewers and enjoy much greater credibility than the media which presented “400 par” as the fait accompli in 2024 general election.
Sanjay K. Jha is a political commentator.
This article went live on October twenty-sixth, two thousand twenty five, at zero minutes past ten in the morning.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
