Why UP will never have a Nitish Kumar on the horizon.UP appears fated to elect as CM 1 out of its existing cast of discredited charactor

Why UP will never have a Nitish Kumar

NV Subramanian | Thursday, January 12, 2012



Uttar Pradesh appears fated to elect as chief minister one out of its existing cast of discredited characters. There is no Nitish Kumar on the horizon. That begs the question: But why isn’t there?

Nitish Kumar did not happen all of a sudden to Bihar. He upstaged Lalu Prasad Yadav after nearly two decades of Mandal politics. Lalu’s legendary misrule and some smart social engineering assisted Nitish Kumar.

But only so much. Nitish rose as a consequence of Mandal politics playing itself out. Lalu’s votebank was more or less intact in defeat. But another section of forward OBCs and a slice of minorities went with Nitish, who also got a block of votes of the extreme backwards among the OBC and Scheduled Castes. Lalu had done little for them, while Nitish promised — and subsequently delivered — governance and development. Under Nitish, Bihar has grown at nearly 11%.
Article continues below the advertisement...

While Bihar had Lalu and Nitish as competing OBC leaders, Uttar Pradesh had only one with nearly the same political background and Mandal advantage, and that was Mulayam Singh Yadav. Kalyan Singh as a Lodh community leader was later Mulayam’s rival till he declined along with his party in the state, the BJP, from which he has been going and coming.

If the opposite pole of politics in the post-Mandal decade has belonged to Nitish in Bihar, it has been clearly biased in favour of Mayawati in UP. In 2007, she formed her own government by joining the Dalit vote to those of the forwards and minorities, eclipsing Mulayam. But this is about winning elections, not governance, as one has come to associate with Nitish.

If you compare the broad caste and community composition of UP and Bihar, it is largely similar, except for the higher proportion of Dalits in Uttar Pradesh and the OBCs in Bihar. The trouble, however, is that Uttar Pradesh has no top notch social engineer like Nitish Kumar who is also deeply committed to development and governance.
Mulayam’s rule is frequently equated with ‘goonda raj’. The OBC and minority votes have also since split to his disadvantage. The Dalit vote has not splintered as in Bihar and solidly backs Mayawati. But Mayawati is not Nitish by a long shot.

Nitish without the BJP would be a no-show in Bihar. Since the BJP has no one of Nitish’s eminence in Bihar, it is not in active competition there. In UP, it has huge stakes of its own. Winning state elections is one thing. But UP’s 80 Lok Sabha seats makes the difference between winning and losing power at the Centre. And since the Nitish effect does not travel to Uttar Pradesh, the Bihar chief minister can hardly seek the same advantageous sort of alliance with the BJP as in his state.

But the BJP and its mainstream twin, the Congress, suffer from similar handicaps in UP. They have not projected chief-ministerial alternatives to Mayawati and Mulayam Yadav (whose son, Akhilesh, is also in the race), which further nixes the possibility of a Nitish Kumar II arising in the near-term.

Typical of its dynastic culture, the Congress trusts Rahul Gandhi’s parachute politics to produce miracles in UP. The BJP has a pugnacious chief minister candidate in Uma Bharati, who could pose a doughty challenge to Mayawati and Mulayam. But not being from Uttar Pradesh plays against her. And her rustic ways do not go down well with the BJP central leadership. She could be the game-changer in Uttar Pradesh and she is being wasted.

So a combination of factors make the emergence of a second Nitish Kumar in Uttar Pradesh appear remote. Judged by his success, Nitish knows his state’s politics better than anybody. But he has not let it go to his head. Governing with vision, he has prevented the further political fragmentation of Bihar.

Uttar Pradesh represents the worst example of the opposite kind. By their venal quota electioneering and politics, nearly all parties are pushing the state to irreclaimable backwardness. There isn’t another Nitish Kumar to reverse this madness.

The writer is editor of the New Delhi-based www.newsinsight.net and writes on politics and strategic affairs
envysub@gmail.com