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Patna, (Bihar Times): Five days after the first major reshuffle in the Nitish Kumar cabinet the infighting within the National Democratic Alliance, especially in the Bharatiya Janata Party, is yet to subside. BJP workers have not only gone on warpath against the Deputy Chief Minister, Sushil Kumar Modi and state party chief Radha Mohan Singh to protest against the unceremonious sacking of better-performing Health Minister, Chandra Mohan Rai and Art and Culture Minister, Janardhan Singh Sigriwal, but are questioning the wisdowm of the chief minister Nitish Kumar.

How can a politician like Giriraj Singh of the BJP, who remains in the news for all the wrong reasons, be a replacement for Chandra Mohan Rai, who handled his portfolio so well? And how can a man like Bhagwan Singh Khuswaha of the Janata Dal (United), against whom even murder case is pending, be inducted into the cabinet? This is the question doing the rounds in the political circle.

As a damage limitation exercise Sushil Modi, on Friday, called a Press conference to disclose that there would be another cabinet expansion within six months. But his statement did not go down well as there is no scope for any further induction in the Nitish ministry. It needs to be mentioned that only 11 per cent of the total MLAs of any state assembly can be included in the cabinet. The Bihar assembly has the strength of 243 and there are in all 36 ministers here.

With crisis in the BJP the party with a difference refusing to blow over things are not well either in the Janata Dal (United). Initially it appeared that the Chief Minister has little to worry as the squabbling within the smaller alliance partner the BJP is not going to harm him much. In fact he thought that weaker the BJP the better it would be for him to run the government smoothly. A section of Janata Dal (United) always wanted to distance itself from the BJP. The refusal to enter into an alliance with it in Karnataka, where assembly election is round the corner, can be cited as an example. The Janata Dal United President, Sharad Yadav, recently threatened to quit the NDA if the BJP does not change its stand on certain issues. Its national spokesman, Shivanand Tiwary, strongly opposed the Gujarat Model being projected by Lal Krishna Advani for the next Parliamentary election. He pooh-poohed chief minister Narendra Modi's claim of developing Gujarat on the plea that his state was already among the well-developed states of the country.

In alliance politics the major partner always wants the minor partner to remain weak and in that way the infighting within the BJP was suiting Nitish Kumar. But resignation of the recently sacked Building Construction Minister, Monazir Hassan, from the post of state vice president of the Janata Dal (United) came as a shock to him. A day after dropping him and nine other ministers from the cabinet Nitish made Monazir and seven others as the vice president of the party. The plea was that they would strengthen the organization. But three days later Monazir quit.

It would be premature to say whether his resignation would affect the party or not but there is no denying the fact that Monazir was the only Muslim minister of the Rabri cabinet who quit the RJD government well ahead of the 2005 assembly election and joined the Janata Dal (United). Unlike Manzar Alam, another minister to be dropped by Nitish, he has some political clout and was projected as the Muslim face of the Janata Dal (United).

Unlike the BJP, where many MLAs are openly speaking against the leadership, in the Janata Dal (United) Monazir became the first MLA to raise the banner of revolt. Though Monazir is not speaking too much what appeared to have offended him was the manner in which the chief minister had fixed the quota of two ministers for Muslims. Monazir and Manzar were replaced by Shahid Ali Khan and Jamshed Ashraf.

Political observers are now saying that in the 15 years of Lalu-Rabri Raj not a single Muslim minister was sacked. Be it Ghulam Sarwar or Monazir Hassan or anyone else they resigned on their own after political differences and not dismissed on the plea that they were not performing well.

So while the BJP is neck-deep in trouble in Bihar and finding it extremely difficult to come out of the crisis everything is not hunky-dory for the Janata Dal (United) too. Much now depends on the political maturity of Nitish Kumar. Better administrator does not always mean better politician. Similarly the BJP too will have to realize that it can no longer remain a cumbersome baggage for the Janata Dal (United) to carry.


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