They say that there are no permanent friends or permanent foes in politics. Only permanent interests.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seems to be a bit too familiar with that adage. Gangster-turned-politician and convicted killer Anand Mohan (out on parole) was attending the engagement of his son on 24 April when he received news about his release. Nitish Kumar was there, and so was Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav.
The Patna High Court in 2007 had sentenced him to death for abetting the lynching of a Dalit District Magistrate, R Krishnaiah. A year later, the sentence was reduced to rigorous life imprisonment in 2008. The man in power was Nitish Kumar.
15 years on, Anand Mohan is a free man after the Bihar government tweaked the prison rules to allow convicts who are in jail for killing civil servants to have their release considered due to good behaviour. The man in power is Nitish Kumar.
A former confidant of Nitish Kumar said that they were "not all surprised that this had happened" and they will "not be surprised at a lot of things that come to transpire in Bihar’s politics. It is not that he is inconsistent, no. Far from inconsistent, he is deliberately duplicitous."
Incidentally, Mohan's release and Nitish attending his son's engagement happened less than two weeks after he, along with Tejashwi, met West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to open a broader alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party. He had also met Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, and even Rahul Gandhi for the same purpose.
So, if Nitish Kumar has emerged as a key player to unite the opposition, is commissioning a convicted gangster's release a bad start to this conquest? The tactics that may have worked for Nitish at the state level, are they likely to work at the national level? As the source and other experts have explained below, for Nitish, "Bihar comes first."
To Lead the Opposition, Nitish has to Win Bihar First
Talking about a potential bipolar contest between Nitish Kumar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ajoy Bose, who has covered UP and Bihar politics extensively, says that such a contest will lead to Nitish getting "slaughtered in the elections." The opposition "will have to fight many battles against the BJP, not one battle. They will be fighting from area to area, from district to district, from constituency to constituency. Nitish has to take care of the 40 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar first."
Political analyst and commentator Amitabh Tiwari provides a similar assessment. "Nitish's larger role is to stay relevant in the politics of Bihar," he contends. "His party has 16 or 17 Lok Sabha seats. To have any prospect for the prime ministerial position, he would need to retain a majority of those seats. Otherwise, he will have no authority to lead the opposition."
Talking about the importance of Anand Mohan in Bihar's political calculus, journalist Arati R Jerath too says that unless Nitish's alliance can secure enough seats in Bihar, he is a non-starter at the national level.
"Anand Mohan is, at the end of the day, an extremely powerful Rajput figure in his area. As long as he's been in jail, his wife has been substituting for him in the Lok Sabha. She's been a Congress candidate, she's been a Samajwadi Party candidate. And each time she has won. I think all parties look the other way when it comes to their electoral prospects, because that, I think, trumps everything," she argues.
Asked whether this will hamper Nitish's image as a national leader, the source, referring to the Bilkis Bano case, says that "Narendra Modi could remain prime minister after his government released and garlanded a dozen rapists, Anand Mohan is not worse than that, is he? Look at the larger picture. Don't pin one man down. These 11-12 people who were convicted for raping a woman multiple times, for the multiple murders of infants, releasing them and then campaigning for the Gujarat elections is not a bad thing? When compared to that, the Anand Mohan issue is a very small one."
'In Bihar, Before Your Name, Comes Your Caste'
It is no secret that Anand Mohan's son, Chetan, is an MLA of Rashtriya Janata Dal, and given that the RJD and the JD(U) are running the government, Nitish may have come under pressure to release him.
As the source said, "Tomorrow he may even turn around and say that members of the RJD put pressure on him. You never know with Nitish Kumar. But the fact is that Anand Mohan's son is an RJD MLA. But let’s get this straight. Whether a situation has a caste angle or not, somehow there always is one. In Bihar, before your name comes your caste. The caste angle is stereotypical but also realistic."
Therefore, while Chetan Mohan is undoubtedly a key factor in this situation, the bigger factors are caste and the political calculations surrounding it. As Ajoy Bose says, "The JD(U) knows that it has secured the Muslim vote. Nitish also has the OBC vote tied up. This is obviously to try and break BJP’s stranglehold on the upper caste, Rajput vote."
Indeed, according to data, most upper-caste MLAs (34) in the 2020 elections were elected from the BJP. According to data curated by Trivedi Centre for Political Data, this is the proportion of tickets that the BJP distributed to the following communities:
Rajputs - 24.5 percent
Brahmins - 11.8 percent
Bhumihars - 7.3 percent
Banias - 9.1 percent
Yadavs - 13.6 percent
Non-Yadav OBCs - 22 percent
On the other hand, the JDU gave 59 tickets to OBC candidates, 23 to upper-caste candidates, 18 to Scheduled Castes, 11 to Muslims, one member of the Scheduled Tribes.
The RJD, meanwhile, distributed 31 percent tickets to Yadav candidates, 11 percent to Muslims, with the rest 58 percent being divided between upper castes, non-Yadav OBCs, and others.
This also probably explains why the BJP has been silent on the issue. "The BJP's base in Bihar is largely upper caste. They don't have too much following amongst scheduled castes and so on. Their basic following is Rajput, Bhumihars, Brahmins, and so on. So, obviously, they would be very careful before they attack an upper caste leader," explains Jerath.
Additionally, says Tiwari, "Until now, Nitish knew he had the upper caste vote for this government when the JD(U) was allied to the BJP. With the collapse of that coalition, Nitish needs to fill that gap. Additionally, there is a political rivalry between Rajputs and Brahmins that remains to be properly exploited. Nitish might be trying to tap into that rivalry. After all, Anand Mohan and his family have significant electoral influence among the upper caste and Rajput votes."
Four such constituencies are Sheohar, Supaul, Saharsa, and Madhepura.
Taking a Leaf From the BJP Playbook?
Another reason why Nitish might be taking this route to consolidate Rajput votes is that he believes that he will get away with it. The BJP accusing Nitish of letting criminals go scot-free will only lead to the latter hitting back with the example of the convicts in the Bilkis Bano case.
On this, Tiwari poses the question: "Until the Bilkis case hit the headlines, did you even know that remission was a thing? I did not, and many others did not either. If the BJP can use such tactics before an election, then why won't Nitish consider doing something similar for electoral purposes."
"The people in the opposition today are learning from the BJP. Whether it's the release of gangsters or the misuse of agencies and the police, the opposition is emulating the BJP because they are seeing that the latter's tactics are working."
Similarly, Jerath says that the BJP has set new, low standards for what is acceptable in the politics of Indian democracy. "Since they are bypassing established conventions and traditions, and democracy, pretty much everybody is doing the same thing. While the national opposition and the opposition in every state is in danger, the real danger is to our democracy. The danger is for the Constitution by which India has functioned for the last 70 years, because today I think every party is saying that they will keep pushing the envelope to see what they can get away with."
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