Race to Resign - Nitish becomes the first one

Barely 24 hours have passed since it became clear that the BJP will form the government at the centre with Narendra Modi as the PM and we get the first resignation from a CM. And it's not Narendra Modi who has resigned but his fierce rival and critic Mr. Nitish Kumar the CM of Bihar. This is the same man who tore away a 17 year old alliance with BJP exactly a year ago in June when the latter indicated Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate.

Since Nitish Kumar's JD(U) & BJP formed the government in Bihar the state has seen massive development work with highest GDP growth rate in India for several years (owing to a small base). The prominent place that Nitish Kumar occupied was also due to tarnished image of the previous CM Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav who was tainted with corruption scandals and criminal cases against him and his key aides. The people of Bihar breathed in a fresh air after the JD(U)-BJP coalition came to power with rising levels of employment, decreasing crime rate & increasing incomes.

What was always a friendly alliance started suffering with the progression of Narendra Modi withing the BJP cadres. JD(U) posted itself as a secular party and thus had access to Muslim vote bank and with Narendra Modi at helm of affairs JD(U) was risking its Muslim votes being sacrificed as Mr. Modi has been seen as a divisive figure by many people.

Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar. Kumar has been a fierce
critic of Modi and has questioned his development model

Also, Mr. Nitish Kumar's 115 seats our of total 243 in the Bihar assembly made him comfortable as finding a majority figure even without BJP wasn't a much difficult task. Nitish Kumar saw huge gains for himself in severing ties with the BJP in form of Muslim vote bank, Hindu votes which came to him on the basis of his development in the state (though the development was done by JD(U)-BJP duo).

In all these circumstances and due to his personal dislike for Mr. Modi (read - A country with a dozen PMs - 25th April, 2014) Mr. Kumar broke away 17 year old coalition with the BJP in June last year.

And no one needs to repeat what happened after this. Lalu Yadav got bail and made a coalition with the Congress, Paswan came into the NDA and the Muslim vote that Nitish was expecting got divided and the Hindu vote went in the favour of BJP (BJP-LJP combined vote share at 35.8% vs 15.8% for JDU).

The results came as a shocker with the NDA bagging 31 brownies out of the total 40 seats and JDU shrinking to just 2 seats. What was initially seen as an achievement by JDU by splitting from the BJP came as a nightmare with the poor performance.
 
Party Name
Won
                       BJP
                22
                       OTHERS
                 1
                       RJD
                 4
                       JD(U)
                 2
                       IND
                 0
                       CPI
                 0
                       RLSP
                 3
                       INC
                 2
                       LJP
                 6

Coming to the latest news, the resignation of Nitish Kumar as the CM and his application to the Governor to dissolve the assembly. News and rumors were ripe that the state government may fall soon as many of the sitting JDU MLAs are pitching to support the BJP and thus planning to change sides. The most likely scenario of government falling would have been when the Governors would have changed with the BJP appointing new governors to various states.

Under these circumstances Nitish Kumar resigned himself. The ace politician has earned some positive points in the resignation. Firstly, he has taken moral responsibility for the poll debacle thus encouraging his cadre. Secondly, it was imminent that the state assembly will fall soon due to several MLAs backing out and that would have been insulting for the party as well as for the leader. So by resigning the CM has saved himself and the party from direct insult.

The entire course of events further will be clear in days to come once a full fledged cabinet comes into power after Narendra Modi swears in for the PM post. But one thing is for sure that the Nitish era has also come to an end with the Congress era and speculations regarding the same fate of other states like Uttarakhand are gaining ground.

Such is the political turmoil that one shift at the centre can bring in the circles of power.

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