Nitish on way to appeasement of all

This article originally appeared at The Patna Daily

Virtue out of necessity 
Fortuitously, as the four-day Chhath festival ended gracefully in a peaceful way, everyone is relaxed now, especially the Bihar government and the state police which were on toe for more than a week's time. On the backdrop of serial bomb blast in Patna it was skeptical for deities and the public in general.

But what is surprising to witness this festive week that very few of us would have noticed is the incarnation of poster boy in Nitish as huge hoardings of him were pasted throughout the arterial roads, roundabouts and the Ganga ghats. 

In these giant posters Nitish Kumar is depicted as praying the God Bhaskar with a dark silhouette of a woman devotee paying aarghya to the God Sun in waist deep water. It was a perfect work that touches the sentiments of aam Biharis. Everyone agrees that Chhath related photographs is a hit. It is nothing but reflexive of a large Hindu sentiment. 

Since Nitish Kumar sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bihar on 24 November 2005, it is his eighth term as CM witnessing the Chhath Puja celebration. And this is the first time our Nitish Kumar appears on such large posters on the eve of a Hindu festival. Is there any political compulsion or this a damage control exercise. 
The poster boy 

It is ubiquitous, that the serial bomb blast in the Modi rally on 27th October in Patna followed by reports of Bihar being soft on terror for minority vote politics has made enough dent to the image of Nitish Kumar. The BJP which buoy to a level best on the Hindu votes cut him short heavily blaming him doing politics of minority appeasement. 
The split with BJP followed by the terror attack on Bodh Gaya and Patna are sure to damage his(Nitish) entire political gimmick beyond revocable. Nitish who bowed to minority vote bank compulsion, went too far on the path of secular politics where it was impossible for him to make a U-turn. This makes him dump a 17 year long partner in BJP. Nitish must have got the idea of the repercussion of this split act before he formally made his way apart. 

Still, post split a wary and worried Nitish whispered at occasions that he never wanted a split, approves his state of mind. But the aftermath of the terror attack in the Modi rally in Patna, unexpectedly helped polarization of Hindus in favor of Modi. The saffron party aptly handles the post blast atmosphere to project the attack as attack on Hindutava and Modi.

This is a sheer poster politics and nothing else. Nitish is on the way to a damage control exercise to get the large Hindu vote bank back. This political compulsion has made Nitish to do work tirelessly ahead of a Hindu festival. Undoubtedly, the wary Nitish made a virtue out of necessity this time.

Amit Sinha is a bilingual writer and research Journalist. He can be contacted at facebook.amit