'They were as late as June 2023 and they did not follow it up with concrete measures immediately in terms of a secretariat or common minimum programme, working group or seat sharing etc.'
'They continued to have periodic meetings after a gap of weeks where they had tasty dinner and coffee, but beside that they did nothing else.'
Pavan Varma was India's ambassador to Bhutan in 2012, where he got the chance to meet Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
He was so impressed by Nitish Kumar that he decided to join Nitish Kumar after he retired from the Indian Foreign Service for the development of Bihar.
He bonded closely with Nitish Kumar after which he was made a Rajya Sabha member from the Janata Dal-United.
However, when the Bharatiya Janata Party government brought in the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, Ambassador Varma opposed it, thus going against the stance taken by Nitish Kumar and the JD-U, which was, then as now, part of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.
This led to the ambassador's expulsion from the JD-U.
Soon after Nitish Kumar's government won the trust vote in the Bihar assembly on Monday, February 12, 2024, Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com spoke to Pavan Varma, about what the political stars foretell for Bihar in the Lok Sabha election.
In your column (external link), you wrote that Nitish Kumar has taken 'Aaya Ram Gaya Ram' to a new low.
Will he ever be a symbol of hope for the people of Bihar in future?
To my mind, by now Nitish Kumar's credibility and personal popularity as well as the strength of his own political party have been greatly diminished.
To the people of Bihar -- and I say this with some degree of sorrow as he was my political mentor at one point of time -- he was known as 'Sushasan Babu' (good administrator). There was a great deal of hope as the people of Bihar looked up to him. He had the potential to rise to the very top political pinnacle in India.
All of that seems to have destroyed by the slow process of relentless political suicide. Today, Nitish's own political credibility and his party's political strength have diminished to a new low.
People say after January 22, the day of consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, things are not the same for the Opposition.
The building of a beautiful temple for Ram Lalla was the consequence of the Supreme Court judgment (and not the BJP). The reason for the BJP's political dominance is because the Opposition parties are exceptionally disorganised and therefore they are electorally ineffective.
In this the Congress is to be held principally culpable. It is the largest segment of the Opposition. It fights the BJP in 250-300 seats directly and it has failed to re-invent, restructure and re-incarnate itself to take on the BJP effectively.
The second reason for their (failure) is that they started Opposition unity much too late. They were as late as June 2023 and they did not follow it up with concrete measures immediately in terms of a secretariat or common minimum programme, working group or seat sharing etc. They continued to have periodic meetings after a gap of weeks where they had tasty dinner and coffee, but beside that they did nothing else.
So when Opposition unity has completely fractured with no pan-India Opposition left, many leaders in other parties have no option but to go with the party that is likely to win. This is because the other side, which is the Opposition, at this moment offers no hope.
Do you feel INDIA parties not making Nitish Kumar their convener is what made him drift to the BJP camp?
I am afraid I cannot agree with this analysis. Nitish Kumar's ambition to become convener was not backed by his actual strength on the ground.
He may have remained chief minister by making political agility into a fine art without any ideological framework, but in Bihar itself his party is the smallest of three parties. He has become a utilitarian accessory to either the BJP or RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal). And the number of times he has switched from one side to the other did not create trust among the other Opposition alliance partners.
I think Nitish Kumar has made the change in order to continue as chief minister of Bihar for as long as it is possible for him. I don't believe his tenure will be more than the Bihar assembly election of 2025.
For Nitish Kumar, the (CM's) chair has become his principal magnet and all other principles have been thrown to the wind.
He got Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee to the INDIA bloc, isn't it? Didn't he have the potential to lead the alliance then?
In my view he must have some role to play in initiating talks about Opposition unity. But to say that this would make him the Opposition convener was in doubt.
Prashant Kishor on Aap Ki Adalat said if you call Nitish Kumar Paltu Ram, then BJP leaders too must be called Paltu Ram because they went back to Nitish Kumar while abusing him at public meetings a fortnight earlier. Why is Nitish alone taking all the blame then?
Today which party in Bihar can claim to have any ideological rectitude?
The RJD has abused Nitish's Janata Dal-United and formed an alliance with them to be in government.
The BJP has abused JD-U and formed an alliance.
Politics in Bihar has been reduced to the lowest common denominator. That is why the whole of Bihar is looking for an alternative.
And it appears that Prashant Kishore with his unprecedented padyatras (is an alternative). He has been on his padyatra for 18 months where he works for 18 hours a day and lives in different villages of Bihar. He walks 18 km a day and is carrying a new message to the people of Bihar. He is getting tremendous resonance.
Critics of Socialist parties say that Jayaprakash Narayan brought the RSS to the Opposition camp and from thereon started the demise of the Socialist parties. This resulted in what we see as the BJP's unparalleled power today. In retrospective, do you feel Nitish Kumar is following a similar route?
Nitish Kumar was the most polished product of the socialist movement. He has also become the most prominent symbol of the breakdown of ideology in the socialist camp.
The frequent changing of sides by its tallest leaders and the splits within the socialist movement, the opportunistic alliances within the socialist camps or transient hold of power, has reduced socialists to a spent force in India.
Where is Indian democracy heading now, considering that many people say we will witness an opposition-mukt Bharat?
I have great faith in Indian democracy. I never believe that however strong a political party looks or however weak the Opposition looks, as anyone in power will never be in power permanently because politics is dynamics.
As Mirza Ghalib said, 'Har Bulundi ke naseebo mein hai pasti ek din (every pinnacle in politics also has its fall).'
And it has happened many times in history. Be it Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi.
Therefore, I have great faith in the wisdom and strength of the people of India. They will ultimately make the right choice at the right time about what is good for India.
