![[File] Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, party leader Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal CM and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar during the INDIA alliance meeting in Mumbai | PTI](https://img.theweek.in/content/dam/week/news/india/images/2023/9/1/INDIA.jpg "[File] Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, party leader Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal CM and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar during the INDIA alliance meeting in Mumbai | PTI")
If Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar exits the opposition bloc and returns to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, it will be a crushing irony indeed for the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).
The INDIA alliance stares at the huge damage the development will have in terms of perception for the opposition grouping just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. A plus for the BJP from such a turn of events and a negative for the INDIA bloc of parties will be the talk about the return to the NDA fold of the very leader who had initiated the efforts to bring the opposition parties together for the general elections.
It was Nitish who had in the middle of 2023 begun efforts to bring the opposition parties on a common platform to take on the BJP jointly in the Lok Sabha elections. He had travelled to Delhi and set the ball rolling by meeting Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. He had travelled to other state capitals, too, to meet other opposition leaders. He had then played the role of the original convenor of the opposition bloc, hosting the leaders of the parties for their first formal gathering in Patna on June 23, 2023.
He is credited with placing on the table the proposal that the opposition parties should ensure one-to-one contests between their candidates and those of the BJP in at least 400 Lok Sabha seats so that the anti-BJP votes do not get divided and their chances of defeating the BJP are maximised.
It is learnt that Nitish was extremely upset for some time now on how the INDIA alliance had shaped up. During the course of the meetings the parties had over the past several months, he found himself sidelined in the scheme of things. He felt slighted, according to JD(U) leaders, especially since he had kickstarted the opposition talks and chaired its first meeting in Patna.
His expectation that he would be named the convenor of the alliance was an open secret. It did not go down well with him when West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal proposed at the INDIA meeting in December that the grouping should consider putting forth Kharge as its face for the Lok Sabha elections. Their argument was that projecting a Dalit leader would give the grouping an instant moral advantage over the BJP in the elections. The proposal was seen as an attempt to cut Nitish to size.
The developments in the JD(U), including Nitish replacing Lallan Singh as the party chief, were seen as signs of the Bihar leader changing tack. Lallan Singh was seen as being pro-Rashtriya Janata Dal and Nitish was upset about Lalu Prasad not agreeing to his proposal that the Assembly polls in the state be held together with the Lok Sabha elections. That the Congress could not ensure that the INDIA alliance named him the convenor did not help matters.
The Congress is wary of how the developments in Bihar would especially reflect on its leadership. It could be argued that a tall leader exited the INDIA alliance because of the Congress's failure to act swiftly on alliance matters, including the structure of the grouping and the different roles to be assigned to various leaders as also seat sharing.
The immediate concern for the Congress is that the Rahul-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra will soon be entering Bihar, and it had planned a rally in Purnia on January 30. Nitish as well as Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav have been invited by the Congress to take part in the rally, which was intended to showcase the INDIA unity in the politically crucial state.
In the light of the fast moving developments in Patna, the Congress has named former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister and ace political organiser Bhupesh Baghel as senior observer to coordinate the yatra during the Bihar stretch and also to oversee other party activities in the state.
The Congress is wary of the domino effect that the Bihar developments can have on the INDIA alliance, already under tremendous pressure to come up with a compelling narrative and a counter strategy to deal with the Ram Temple-boosted Hindutva campaign of the BJP. That explains the damage control exercise put in motion in West Bengal to bring the Trinamool Congress back on board and the relative swiftness with which an alliance was announced in Uttar Pradesh.
