Nitish likes to support winning candidate in presidential poll

Sachchidanand Jha

Patna : Bihar CM and JD(U) national President Nitish Kumar ‘s recent statements on presidential poll scheduled for July 17, 2017, clearly suggest that he had taken the decision to support the NDA candidate in the poll much before it announced its presidential pick Ram Nath Kovind, 71.

Nitish’s statement on June 22 that the opposition parties have fielded former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar as their presidential candidates knowing fully well that she would be defeated indicates he likes to put bet only on a winning horse. It goes without saying that a ruling party or ruling alliance candidate always has a better chance of winning in a presidential poll. In 2012 presidential poll too, the JD(U) had supported the UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee even as it was one of the constituents of NDA at that time.

But, in 2012, Nitish was politically very strong with complete support of Bihar unit of the BJP. In Bihar assembly too, it had more members than the alliance partner BJP. In 2017, things are different for Nitish. He is not as powerful as in 2012 with the RJD having more members ( 80) than the JD(U) in the Bihar assembly. Since Nitish has refused to support Meira Kumar, the Congress party is also not at all happy with him. The Congress party has 27 members in the state assembly while the JD(U) has 71 members.

Nitish must have thought of the possible political fallout of his decision to support NDA’s presidential pick because if the RJD and Congress withdraw support to his government would be immediately reduced to a minority. But, Nitish knew that in such a situation the NDA with 58 members in the state assembly would definitely bail him out.

The JD(U) has not taken kindly to the statements of some RJD leaders against him. RJD chief Lalu Prasad has, however, maintained that the Grand Alliance government would remain intact in Bihar. With he himself facing trial in few fodder scam cases and his children including Deputy CM Tejaswi Yadav and daughter Dr Misa Bharti, MP, on the Income-tax radar, Lalu too is not feeling politically very strong. He does not have much option than to support Nitish government as the RJD can never side with the BJP.