Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar accused the Congress’ preoccupation with coming assembly elections in five states of the INDIA bloc’s incapacity to allow the impetus it had attained in the past bygone months. He stated his sentiments at a rally in Patna by the Communist Party of India.
Pointing out his views regarding the INDIA coalition, he noted that all of us approved of entrusting Congress as the leading facet. Nonetheless, it appears they will respond and call the next meeting only after they are relieved with the ongoing elections, he said.
He has always carried out his craft and sense of timing to hit upon the standard between approach, political worth, and expedient bargains. It is easy to dismiss his alliance-switching paces as opportunistic. But he takes his opportunities, and the finer space available for his flexibility has largely been a function of uncertain political limits and their troubled social grounds in the political limits of his state.
Even in the face of daunting challenges, it is difficult to see how the time-hardened political enterprise of Bihar’s longest-serving chief minister will let him slip into any semblance of irrelevance at times. He has completed 17 years in his office.
The duration of his tenure now exceeds the record previously held by the first CM Krishna Sinha of the state in the post-independence phase. Except for a brief period of nine months, during which Nitish had handed over the chief ministership to Jitan Ram Manjhi, this could have been an unbroken stint. That record remains with Bihar’s first Chief Minister.