August 11, 2020
By: Anirbaan Hritiq
The Indian political scenario is one of the most complex, bizarre, and dynamic. In brief, India is a whole world in itself being exceptionally diversified and a unique amalgamation of billion minds. Being the second most populous country and the world’s largest democratic nation with an official population of 1.33 billion people, being a politician in our country needs a heart made of up solid iron.
A politician goes through various emotional, psychological, physiological, and ideological turmoil to gain the trust of the public, who can change colours even faster than the fastest colour-changing species of chameleon that is Panther Chameleon.
Even though we criticize politicians for various scams, political malpractices, horse-trading, booth-capturing, and other kinds of tactics used by them to remain in the power, still India proves to have the best strategy of conducting elections.
Doing politics in India needs not only an enormous amount of monetary backing but also a great understanding of how the dynamics of the vote bank work. We often hear terms such as freebies, minority appeasement, liberal policies, polarization, left-wing, right-wing, and ache din from spokespersons of political parties as well as from well-known figures involved in the television debates but how far it is influencing the voters, is again a big question before all of us.
Coming to the Bihar politics which was and is dominated by two big names that is Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav is one of the most unique case-study in itself. A state which boasts about producing the largest number of civil servants still stands at the bottom part of the list of the country’s overall literacy rate.
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A state which produces an equivalent number of IAS officers who decide the fate of the nation’s policies along with goons and anti-socials who make the state infamous for no reason. Perhaps, dealing with such hell and heaven difference levels of ideologies has become a child’s play for the stalwart politicians like Nitish Kumar who recently took oath 8th time as the Chief Minister of Bihar.
Electrical engineer turned politician with socialist ideology Nitish Kumar is considered as one of the primary figures in Indian Politics. His calculative measures and timely alliances have always managed to keep him in power since he took oath for the very first time as CM of Bihar in the year 2000.
Nitesh’s political career started in the year 1985, as an MLA on Janata Dal’s ticket, he also formed Samata Party with George Fernandes in the year 1994 with later merged to form JD(U). Nitesh got elected to Lok Sabha in the year 1996 being a part of Atal Bihar Vajpayee’s NDA Government as a union minister. But who knew that Nitish was going to be the ultimate figure of Bihar Politics very soon?
Nitish Kumar took oath as the CM of Bihar on 3rd March 2000 despite of lack of a majority and the rule continued for only 7 days. But this was just the beginning of the journey which would make Nitish one of the most desirable figures in Bihar politics. Even an engineer can do wonders in politics was proven in the year 2005, when Nitesh’s party won 88 seats and was supported by NDA to form the government in Bihar which won 55 seats and just surpassed the majority with 122 seats in a 243 members house. Nitesh successfully completed his 5 years term with significant contributions to Bihar’s growth and development.
In 2010, he was again sworn in as the CM, but in 2013 he ditched the BJP and after the poll loss he resigned and installed Jitan Ram Manjhi in his position. However, he returned as the CM in 2015 and said he shouldn’t have gone on the back foot and resigned. In 2015 he allied with the RJD and swept the polls, but in 2017 he parted ways with the RJD and started his new innings with the BJP and continued till the assembly election in 2020. This was his seventh term as the CM of Bihar. The overall journey of Nitish Kumar has been full of high-voltage political drama and mind games, where he has used alliances in his favour and enjoyed power.
Taking oath 8th time as the CM of Bihar, Nitish is expected to come up with a new game plan and minor changes in the existing portfolios. Where Tejashvi Pratap Yadav is tipped to be the Deputy CM and RJD continues to bid for crucial portfolios in the ministry. No matter whosoever gets whichever portfolio, Nitish has proven himself to be a master in Indian politics and can even beat Magnus Carlsen in real life game of chess.
