Bihar gears up for round 2 of Nitish Kumar-Narendra Modi battle

PATNA: Nitish Kumar is set to return as Bihar CM. He will take oath on February 22 in a ceremony being projected as a show of "secular" strength, with UP CM Akhilesh Yadav, his father and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and former PM HD Deve Gowda attending it. Mamata and Mayawati had remained in touch with Kumar through the confrontation over outgoing CM Jeetan Manjhi.

Sources said Kumar might seek the trust vote on March 11. It's not clear yet whether he will take oath alone or along with his ministerial team.

That it won't be smooth sailing for Manjhi on the floor of the House was known. At least 98 of JD(U)'s 111 MLAs in the 233-strong House attended the dinner hosted by Kumar on the eve of Manjhi's trust vote that he didn't seek. With RJD's 24 MLAs, Congress's five, and CPI's one MLA pledging support to him, Kumar has more numbers than the magic figure of 117.

BJP was reconciled to the numerical superiority of the rival camp, but was banking on Manjhi to stage a high-voltage performance on the floor of the assembly following the examples of Vajpayee and Deve Gowda, the two former PMs who turned trust votes into opportunities to craft planks and hurt their opponents. BJP circles, which applauded Manjhi's rebellion and the damage it caused to Kumar's plan to woo Mahadalits, were disappointed that a good opportunity was wasted.

The outcome also clears the way for a second round of high-stakes battle between Kumar and Modi, who won the last bout decisively when JD(U) was trounced in LS election in Bihar with the NDA winning 31 out of the state's 40. But if the next face-off, set for October-November when state polls are due, give Nitish an opportunity to avenge his humiliation, the BJP too has high stakes riding on it. After the Delhi debacle, Bihar elections can be an opportunity for the saffron party to regain the political momentum. Conversely, another defeat will reinforce the perception that the NaMo wave, which propelled BJP to a majority at the Centre and powered it to wins in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand, has ebbed.

Kumar's return will also end the decade-long drought of power for Lalu Prasad's RJD. Though one-time Bihar supremo Lalu will in all probability play the second fiddle to Kumar till the assembly elections, political observers cautioned Kumar that Lalu, infamous for his jungle raj before JD(U) decimated his RJD at the hustings, may prove the proverbial albatross round the neck of 'Sushasan Babu', an epithet Kumar earned as CM for bringing Bihar on the tracks of progress.