In recent times, whenever Bihar Leader of Opposition (LoP) Tejashwi Yadav has attempted to take on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the latter has fallen back on a stock insult, “bachha (novice)”, to stop him in his tracks with a jab at his alleged political inexperience.
During the ongoing Budget session, Nitish went a step further when he told Tejashwi that he had played an instrumental role in making his father and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad the CM in 1990.
“Tumhare pita ko hum hi banaye the. Tumhare jaat wale bhi kahte the ki hum kyon unhe support kar rahe hai. Humne to usi aadmi ko bana diya (I am the one who made your father the CM. Even people from your caste group were against making him the CM. Yet, I supported him),” Nitish said on the floor of the House on March 4. Miffed with the CM’s comment, Tejashwi walked out of the Assembly.
Unspooling the threads of this story takes us back to 1974, when Lalu first came to the limelight as the president of the Patna University Students’ Union (PUSU). This was the time of the JP Movement and anti-Congress sentiment was sweeping across the state and other parts of India. Nitish Kumar who was a student leader at the Bihar College of Engineering also plunged head first into active politics.
However, the trajectories of their political careers differed from the start. While Lalu went on to become an MP from Chhapra in the 1977 Lok Sabha polls, held after Indira Gandhi withdrew Emergency, Nitish lost the Assembly elections that year and in 1980 from the constituency of Harnaut in Nalanda district. He finally tasted success in 1985, when he managed to win from the seat in his third attempt. At the time, both Lalu and Nitish were part of the Lok Dal led by former CM Karpoori Thakur and that is when their camaraderie began.
When Thakur died in February 1988, Lalu, Shivanand Tiwari, Nitish, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Jagdanand Singh, and Vijay Krishna were the important second-rung leaders in the party. However, socialist politics in the state was still dominated by Vinayak Prasad Yadav, Anup Lal Yadav, and Gajendra Himanshu (also a Yadav) who were senior to Lalu and company.
Lalu makes his move
This is when Lalu, a flamboyant character with a rustic style, tried to push out the senior Yadav trio and stake claim as Karpoori Thakur’s political successor. Sharad Yadav, who was close to Chaudhary Devi Lal, former Haryana CM and ex-Deputy Prime Minister, almost succeeded in making Anup Lal Yadav the LoP in 1989. But eventually, Shivanand Tiwari and Nitish backed Lalu for the position.
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In 2015, Nitish told The Indian Express in an interview, “We supported Lalu Prasad because he was a leader of our generation. By supporting him, we wanted to bring power to our generation.”
Lalu became the LoP and the leader of the Lok Dal. When V P Singh merged his Jan Morcha with the Lok Dal and other socialist parties to forge the Janata Dal, Lalu found himself at a disadvantage as he did not find favour with Singh.
In the 1990 Assembly elections, the Janata Dal did not project a CM face even though it had a senior leader such as Ram Sundar Das, a former CM, in its ranks. By this time, Singh had already become the PM and the party was divided into three camps: one led by V P Singh, one by Deputy PM Devi Lal, and another by Singh’s challenger Chandra Shekhar.
The Janata Dal won the election and the manoeuvrings began. While V P Singh wanted Das to become the CM, Devi Lal threw his weight behind Lalu. This is when Lalu called on Chandra Shekhar for help. Chandra Shekhar was backing Raghunath Jha, a dominant leader in North Bihar, in the CM race but knew he would never win. To prevent Ram Sundar Das from winning, Chandra Shekhar threw his weight behind Lalu and in the end the latter won. In an internal party election, Lalu got 59 votes, Das 56, and Jha 14. It was the votes meant for Jha that ensured Lalu’s victory.
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What Nitish may have been referring to
What Nitish may have been referring to was his fervent lobbying for Lalu. Senior leader Vijaywant Choudhary from Samastipur said, “I was in Chandra Shekhar’s camp. I saw Shivanand Tiwari and Nitish Kumar lobby for Lalu in a very tight battle. Lalu, who was destined to become the CM, got the support of his peers. This is what Nitish must have meant when he was taking digs at Tejashwi in the Assembly.”
Choudhary said the CM may have felt obliged to support Lalu because he got the Barh Lok Sabha ticket in 1989 ahead of Vijay Krishna, contesting against senior Congress leader Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav. “Nitish emerged as a giant killer by defeating Ram Lakhan and supported his friend for CM and thus began an era of young socialist leaders,” said the octogenarian leader.
Lalu got back at V P Singh when the latter came to campaign in Bihar for the 1991 elections. By then, Singh was a former PM. As Lalu saw Singh in his favourite seat in the helicopter, he is said to have told the former PM, “Raja saheb, meri seat se hatt jaiye (Please move from my seat).” Singh obliged.
As for Nitish, he quit the Janata Dal in 1994 and formed the Samata Dal along with George Fernandes. Nitish and Lalu, friends since the JP movement, went their separate ways, shaping and reshaping Bihar politics. They came together once in 2015 and then in 2020 but both times, the alliance collapsed.