Former senior JD(U) leader and advisor to Nitish Kumar, Pavan Varma on Tuesday, 10 November said that the prospects of the party in the election were harmed by a BJP-backed conspiracy by the LJP against Kumar, only to reduce Kumar to play the second fiddle in the state.
Praising Nitish Kumar and his tenure, Varma said that the respect that he claims today is because of the revolutionary changes that he has brought about in the administration that changed people’s lives.
‘A Conspiracy Was Hatched Against Nitish’
Suggesting that Nitish improved the administration in his first two tenures, Varma said that his third term saw drawbacks of COVID-19 and the migrant labourers’ crisis.
“But there was another conspiracy that was hatched against him. The BJP wanted that the NDA should come to power and the bigger party should be BJP and that the JD(U) must play second fiddle. According to numbers, it looks like the BJP has achieved that goal,” Varma said.
“The damage caused to the JD(U) because of the LJP is evident. If there was no Chirag Paswan factor, the JD(U) would have had at least 84 seats and might have been the biggest party. But who was Chirag Paswan being backed by? Nithish Kumar knows all this very well,” he added.
“He (Chirag Paswan) says I am the Hanuman to Narendra Modi. Even PM Modi comes here and doesn’t utter a word against Chirag Paswan. He in fact pays tribute to Ram Vilas Paswan after his demise,” he added.
Varma further said that the BJP vote didn’t get transferred to the JD(U) because of Chirag Paswan, whreas the JD(U) vote did get transferred to the BJP.
‘Nitish Has Limited Options Left’
Asked if Nitish Kumar will be willing to play a smaller role administratively and politically in the state, Varma said that considering the party’s performance, he has very limited options before him.
“The moment in 2017 he joined the BJP, the writing on the wall became clear that the BJP would like to replace him in due course with their own chief minister. That they would achieve this goal with such remarkable success in this election itself, purely on the basis of the number of seats each side has got, is some thing quite worthy of admiration,” Varma said.
“His options are limited. Obviously he cannot join hands with the RJD where he will have to play second fiddle to Tejashwi, nor can he become the leader of Opposition because he is the third largest party,” he said.
‘BJP Will Make Things Difficult for Nitish Even If He is CM’
Varma said that the BJP in Bihar will make sure that the CM’s post is no bed of roses for Nitish Kumar this time around.
Varma said Nitish Kumar is aware that it is just a matter of time where his continuation of being in the chief minister’s post will be made very difficult by the people within the BJP itself.
“If he accepts to be the smaller party (in the alliance) to continue as the chief minister, the BJP will be more than generous to offer that to him. That is exactly what they want,” he said.
“If, for instance, the goal is to reduce him to Bihar when he had the potential for a national role and in Bihar to become dependent on the BJP for survival, then he can accept the CM post. But in that situation he will face humiliation. BJP is an ambitious expansionist party. And perhaps they already feel that instead of giving it to JD(U), if they had fought some of the seats themselves, they would have won a majority on their own,” Varma said.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)