Nitish in catch 22 position

Sachchidanand Jha

Patna : With RJD chief Lalu Prasad on July 14, 2017, categorically stating that his younger son and Deputy CM Tejawswi Yadav will not resign in the wake of the CBI registering a case against him making him one of the accused in land for hotel scam on July 5, the task of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has become that much difficult. Even on July 10, the RJD, after a meeting of its legislators, had announced that Tejaswi will not resign. Tejaswi on July 15 skipped a meeting attended by CM Nitish Kumar.

Obviously, Nitish is at his wits end what to do. He can sack Tejaswi sticking to his `zero tolerance against corruption’ stand risking his government as the RJD has declared that if Tejaswi is sacked from the cabinet all its ministers will resign. Nitish can also take the extreme step of resigning himself to keep his image of an honest politician intact. But, even that would mean end of the Grand Alliance government.

Nitish had resigned as Railways Minister after the Gaisal accident and again as the chief minister of Bihar after the 2014 LS polls following his party JD(U) miserable performance in the polls. He had also forced four members of his cabinet facing corruption and other charges to resign between 2005 and 2013.

The Congress party, third partner in the government, is trying to make Lalu appreciate the politicial situation but the latter is in no mood to listen to even AICC president Sonia Gandhi.

But, Nitish is himself to be blamed for this situation. After all, he joined hands with Lalu knowing very well that he had been convicted in a fodder scam case and lost his Lok Sabha membership. Lallu is facing trial in few more fodder scam cases now following a Supreme Court order and some of his children including Tejaswi are on CBI, ED and Income-tax (IT) radar. Nitish is very reluctant to return to the NDA fold after his fight against the BJP in 2013 over Narendra Modi’s nomination as NDA’s prime ministerial candidate. Will he take outside support of the BJP now to save his chair.