[India] Now secularism vs hindutva: In search of pertinent PM

*By Subodh Kumar 

“I have said what I had to. Golden words are not repeated.” – Nitish Kumar

With this avowal, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has threw the ball rolling for a hectic political debate between the Janta Dal (United) and Bhartiya Janta Party which were already engaged in an acrimonious war of words over the issue of pertinent Prime Ministerial candidate for 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Nitish Kumar, has recently sparked of the Prime Ministerial candidate debate by indirectly indicating that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was unacceptable as the PM.

With the 2014 general election just two years away, a tussle is developing within the NDA on who will get the top job if it manages to lead the government. 

While the RSS and some BJP leaders are projecting Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and for the reason RSS on Wednesday came out to Modi's suppport and the Sangh chief called for a Prime Ministerial candidate committed to Hindutva.

RSS’s chief Mohan Bhagwat’s statement comes close on the heels of Mr. Kumar’s assertion recalling Modi’s anachronism of 2002 Gujarat riots as Nitish said former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee wanted to sack him after the Gujarat carnage.

Following Nitish’s remarks, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat intervened in the battle for 2014 raging between two Chief Ministers backed Modi and took on Mr. Kumar saying- to keep alive the Hindutva ideology, the Hindu Samaaj should come together and the country should have a Prime Minister who believes in that ideology and propounds that view.

The statement by Mohan Bhagwat is not just for Nitish Kumar. There is an implicit message also for the second rung BJP leadership and also for the party veterans, that for the RSS, the chosen one to lead the BJP in 2014 is Narendra Modi.

But the Bihar Chief Minister stuck to his stand, taking the anti-Modi campaign a notch up.

It seems that Bihar CM Nitish Kumar is in no mood to shed his Prime Ministerial ambitions as Kumar retorted that Vajpayee was unhappy with Modi's handling of 2002 Gujarat riots, and had the former that it had cost NDA 2004 general elections. He also said that the former Prime Minister wanted to sack Modi after the riots.

The Nitish-Modi rivalry has been on a high for the past few days. Modi took a dig at politicians from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for what the Gujarat Chief Minister calls resorting to caste based politics. Nitish had then said that Modi, who has been a constant irritant in the JD(U)-BJP coalition ties in Bihar, should mind his own business instead of making comments on others.

In raillery once the political thinker Sir Ernest Benn has said that the Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it-whether it exists or not- diagnosing it wrongly and applying the wrong remedy.

So, in this time when the nation is left with two years to witness a Lok Sabha election to choose the apt contender for the top job (Prime Minister), what the big hurry in the political lane of NDA.

People wonder what kind of political rivalry is there between Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. They do not have a common electoral turf, nor do they have any intra-party competition. Moreover, Narendra Modi never targets him. When NDA leaders were competing to show their solidarity with Modi during his Sadbhavana fast, Nitish was not even ready to talk about it. 

Political pundits come out with some simplistic inferences like overriding the muslim factor in electoral battle in Bihar. However, these inferences do not help us when we see him flagging off Advani’s  Yatra because the gesture will no way help him gain muslim support.

Nitish’s supporters are obviously not happy to see him risk his secular credential as this action may demonstrate that his alliance with BJP is not merely a local political compulsion.  They think that people may be driven to such conclusions that Nitish might be thinking to further ride ladders of power with BJP’s support.  

Some JDU insiders have already started guessing, they say that Nitish support to Advani’s Yatra is part of his opposition to Modi. All anti-Modi forces in BJP and the NDA have started rallying behind Advani in preventing the Gujarat CM to emerge as the Prime Ministerial candidate of NDA. 

Much is made of the Nitish-Modi conundrum but little has been highlighted on when and how exactly did this develop.

A timeline trace of Nitish Kumar’s remarks between 2002 and 2007 tells a fascinating story of the pursuit for the incremental Muslim vote in Bihar as Nitish’s JD-U grew at the expense of both the Congress and the RJD drawing in dubious individuals including the now vocal Shivanand Tiwari who not too long ago was Lalu Prasad Yadav’s mouthpiece.

On the surface it may seem to be a story of opportunism and hypocrisy while deep down it is a story of cold real politics and naked ambition going all the way back to 2000 and Nitish’s first attempt at becoming the Chief Minister of Bihar.

The most fascinating aspect of this story however is that while Narendra Modi kept away from Bihar, neither campaigning nor saying much about Nitish, it is Nitish who cast the first stone while campaigning in Gujarat during the 2007 assembly elections on behalf of the JD-U and against the BJP.

The BJP will have to soon decide its definition of “secular”. Nitish has been a fine, progressive, inclusivist Chief Minister of Bihar. But does he have the electoral pull to lift the NDA into 270-plus territory? Do the NDA’s other leaders?

Modi alone probably does though he is hobbled by 2002. But then, despite 1984, we were happy to give Rajiv Gandhi five years as Prime Minister. Once they finish their tortuous, drawn-out deliberations over who they will back as President, the BJP’s leaders will have to come to terms with the question: Modi or Nitish?

If they plump for secular Nitish, they will be widely applauded but will likely spend five more years in the opposition. If they go for Modi, they will be reviled but will probably form the next government.

Sometimes it seems contradictory what the JD(U) general secretary Shivanand Tiwari has said that history tells whenever the India has been ruled by the secular forces whenever fascist forces have taken over, it has suffered. 

People have been fed up with rampant corruption and the anger was manifested on streets of India as seen in Anna Hazare’s movement for strong lok pal bill.

Bharatiya Janta Party too has its own corruption issues as seen in karnataka or even their tie up with Shibu Soren in Jharkhand or allegation on Uttrakhand’s Chief Minister who was replaced recently. But over all prospects of NDA looks better than elections of 2009.

But larger question is who can be best bet for NDA as Prime Ministerial candidate? Grand Old Man Of BJP, L.K.Advani does not seem to have given up his dream of becoming Prime Minister of India, some day.

L.K.Advani has planned rath yatra and his rath seems to be targeting destination ‘Corrupt Free India’ in theory but destination Prime Minister 2014 as agenda!!

I don’t think he would be fit enough to become Prime Minister in 2014 elections.

If Nitish Kumar is charismatic leader who has led the state to an unparalleled level of development and progress, then there is Narendara Modi has become synonymous with development across the world.

If  due to Nitish Kumar, dynamic rise of Bihar holds a bigger promise for India then Gujarat’s development journey in the past decade has everyone ranging from renowned think tanks, scholars to leading journals of the word.

It is clear that the duo's state growth stories have been enormously praised and even contrasted with the air of pessimism that has set in on account of the severe policy paralysis in the rest of the nation.

The facts signify that both Nitish and Modi have the will power to change the fate of the nation  but the major question still remains who would be the Prime Ministerial candidate from the NDA side. Well, whosoever the PM- enormous issue viz. anti-graft, black money, inflation, unemployment, poverty, malnutrition, migration and many others must be resolved. He would be required to leave no stone unturned in fulfilling the dream of shining India not only on the papers rather on the ground reality.

But, before that it would be the crucial responsibility of the individual to elect the pertinent one (Prime Minister) in the upcoming 2014 Lok Sabha polls for which the fight has started. 

(*Subodh Kumar is the Executive Editor of news.BDTV.in. He can be reached at subodh@bdtv.in)