Nitish Kumar: The perennial survivor, leader of all seasons

Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar resigned Sunday morning to gear up to assume his post yet again, this time at the head of the NDA government with the support of the BJP in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.

Nitish’s move to dump the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) to cross over to the NDA marked the fourth time in just over a decade that he has switched sides.

At 72, Nitish, who is taking over as the CM now for a record ninth time, is a veteran socialist and a prominent product of the JP Movement of 1974-75. He has come a long way from the political years he spent in the shadow of, first, Lalu Prasad, and then George Fernandes in the Samata Party, which the two had founded in 1994. The Samata Party had got off to a rocky start, with only seven seats in 1995. It was then that Nitish made a political calculation realising that a three-way fight would never allow him to grow.

In 1996, Nitish hitched his wagon to the BJP, with top leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani acknowledging the importance of having a credible name, that rose above caste, plus had a long political lineage, by their side. In 2000, as part of the NDA, Nitish became the chief minister. Though that government lasted seven days, an alternative to Lalu was looming on the horizon.

Since then, Nitish, a Kurmi, an OBC caste with just around 3% presence in the state, has deftly played his cards and chosen partners with a stronger social base. The BJP has always supported him since 2005, barring four years (June 2013 to July 2017) and about one-and-a-half years (August 2022-27 January 2024) that he aligned with the RJD-led grand alliance. The RJD, in spite of a stronger social base, with the cushion of Muslim-Yadav