Almost in all the places where former chief minister Nitish Kumar went during the recently concluded Sampark Yatra he said he had one regret: that none of his party leader gave him proper feedback about the electoral prospect of the party. He said that he had addressed 214 public meetings during the run up to the Lok Sabha election and nowhere was he told that his party is going to lose. He also conceded that he paid little attention to the Janata Dal (United) workers in the past.
But a rundown of the last few months of the politics within the ruling party of Bihar would reveal something totally different. People’s memory is proverbially short but not so short as to forget the speech made by none else but his––till then––very trusted friend in politics, Shivanand Tiwary, at
Chintan Shivir in Rajgir, just a day after the Hunkar Rally of Narendra Modi in Patna on October 27, 2013. Anyone who heard Tiwary speak, even on television, can say as to how the then Rajya Sabha MP openly warned Nitish to accept the reality and do something to save the party.
But the then chief minister became so upset that he forced Tiwary out of the party. In January 2014 the latter was denied the Rajya Sabha re-nomination. Not only he, even former bureaucrat N K Singh and Sabir Ali were not given the party ticket for the Upper House of Parliament. Nitish pulled the three up in a public meeting in Patna and teasingly asked them to go and contest the Lok Sabha election.
Next came the resignation of Parween Amanullah from his cabinet. She openly charged that there was rampant corruption and loot in the party and claimed that it would pay the price.
A number of relatively less important leaders too dared to say something, but were simply shown the door or they themselves walked out.
Nitish was extremely confident of his victory and was not at all prepared to listen to anyone.
Something very unusual happened with his party. Two of its Lok Sabha candidates withdrew from the contest. First was Sabir Ali, who was given Lok Saba ticket from Seohar after being denied re-nomition of Rajya Sabha. But when he went to his parliamentary constituency, he saw the scene totally different. He withdrew in favour of BJP and praised Narendra Modi. He was thus immediately thrown out of the Janata Dal (United). Than came the withdrawal of Akhtar-ul-Iman, from Kishanganj, who got the JD(U) ticket after he switched over from the RJD. But he left the field in favour of Congress after the date of withdrawal ended, leaving the party with no chance to put up another candidate.
At the time of withdrawal Akhtar-ul-Iman told the media that he was taking this drastic step as he failed to reach Nitish Kumar over phone after repeated attempt to do so. He had then said that he wanted to convey to Nitish the real position,
but Rajya Saba MP R C P Singh denied him any such opportunity to talk to the chief minister. From Shivanand Tiwary to Akhtar-ul-Iman a number of leaders tried to give him feedbacks, but Nitish was not prepared to lend his ears to them. They all dared to caution him at the cost of being humiliated and banished from the party.Then why is it the regret that nobody informed him?
Still it is worth appreciating that he has acknowledged that he was cut off from the party workers and ignored the organization. But the big question is: Has Nitish something more to regret and concede in days to come?
