WITH the emergence of Mr. Samrat Choudhary as the new Chief Minister of Bihar in the place of Mr. Nitish Kumar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has launched a new phase in its political policy in the State in the post-Nitish era. Of course, for the past few years, Mr. Samrat Choudhary has been on the forefront of the BJP’s state politics -- first as President of the party’s Bihar unit and later as Deputy Chief Minister and also the Home Minister. Going by that trajectory, it was only expected that the BJP would choose him to succeed Mr. Nitish Kumar as Chief Minister. He is now expected to lead the BJP’s next phase of political strategy at least for the next few years -- and the country would monitor closely whatever he does. Mr. Samrat Choudhary is not a hard core BJP man. He does not belong to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) mould as well. From other parties, he made his way into BJP a few years ago and climbed the ladder with careful steps.

 

In Bihar’s caste-ridden politics, his background of the Kushwaha community will stand him in good stead as long as he continues to be Chief Minister. Under his signature, the BJP will now be able to achieve its strategic objectives pretty vigorously. In other words, Mr. Samrat Choudhary, a hard core politician, will be the BJP’s face at least for some time. Those who understand the BJP’s political strategy in general will never say that Mr. Samrat Choudhary is a compromise candidate. On the contrary, the BJP will insist that under his leadership, the BJP would look forward to taking a firmer grip on Bihar’s political arena -- as a natural extension of its politics and policy of patience for the past one-and-a-half decades (when Mr. Nitish Kumar was the lord of the ring). The BJP knew very well that it could not afford to push Mr. Nitish Kumar aside to replace him with a BJP candidate as Chief Minister. So strong was Mr. Nitish Kumar’s connect with the people of Bihar. Yet, the BJP worked patiently, allowed Mr. Nitish Kumar’s writ to run in the State, and slowly build its political rank and file as well as voter base.

 

All those efforts have now culminated into the selection of Mr. Samrat Choudhary as Chief Minister. If Mr. Samrat Choudhary blends himself politically correctly and fully with the BJP’s way of working and internalise the RSS ideology, then his survival in the top spot would be long enough to be remembered. If he is not able to achieve those goals, he may get treated as an interim Chief Minister until the BJP finds another candidate belonging originally to the RSS-BJP mould.

 

No matter what may happen in the next few years, it is obvious that Mr. Samrat Choudhary is quite expected to emerge as a good leader and lead Bihar into the next phase of growth and all-round development. Though Mr. Nitish Kumar was known as “Sushashan Babu” -- Man of Good Governance -- Bihar is still reeling under backwardness on quite many fronts. Mr. Samrat Choudhary may not be able to acquire for himself such a tag soon. Yet the tasks are quite cut out for him to straighten up many an administrative glitch and give special impetus to developmental narrative for which the BJP Governments are known. In the BJP’s kitty, Bihar has got added as a new State under its control -- though through in a coalition form. For the party that already has the largest numbers of legislators, this is a major leap forward. It is well known that the BJP’s game of political patience has worked well in Bihar as well. The party now has a contiguous land mass of Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra under its belt (besides some Union Territories). In the North-East, too, all six States are with the BJP with the exception of Meghalaya. The ascendence of a BJP Chief Minister in Bihar may have a positive impact for the party in the ensuing West Bengal legislative elections. In the next few days, a different political picture will emerge.