In search of opposition unity, Nitish Kumar is making challenges for himself!

PATNA: The morale of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the leaders of the Grand Alliance is high after the stupendous success of the meeting of 15 parties in Patna, but at the same time Nitish Kumar is also facing some challenges at the ground level. His own decisions that can turn into self-goals in his own sphere. Nitish Kumar allowed TET job aspirants from other states to participate in teachers recruitment in Bihar. His decision became problematic when Bihar’s Education Minister Professor Chandrashekhar claimed that TET candidates from Bihar had less knowledge of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and English than those from other states.

After this decision of the Nitish Kumar government, anger spread in the state and TET candidates took to the streets in Patna. The Bihar Primary Youth Teachers Association has decided to gherao the Vidhansabha during the monsoon session starting from 10th July. He has appealed for a Maha Andolan (Great Revolution) in Bihar after Nitish Kumar’s decision that changed the domicile policy related to the recruitment of 1.70 lakhs. teacher in the state. Earlier, 1.70 lakh posts were kept only for CTET and BTET pass students of Bihar origin. Now students from other states who have passed CTET or BTET can also be eligible for the job.

Thousands of job aspirants took to the streets of Patna on Saturday and burnt the effigy of Nitish Kumar. He has demanded the withdrawal of the decision. “The youth of Bihar are already facing job crunch and with the latest move by Nitish Kumar, students from other states will get their jobs. This is not happening in other states, so why is the Bihar government doing this. Agitating student Rahul Kumar said, Nitish Kumar will not be allowed to achieve his national political ambition at the cost of our future.

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During the protests on Saturday, the students blocked some areas of the city. The leaders of the Grand Alliance government are facing a very difficult situation. When asked about the domicile policy of the Nitish Kumar government, RJD MLA and senior MLA Uday Narayan Chowdhary got angry and on Friday deflected the question asked by a reporter at his office. He argued with media persons.

Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav had promised to provide 10 lakh jobs during the 2020 assembly elections. Now people are asking whether those jobs are for the students of Bihar or other states? Nitish Kumar had also announced 20 lakh jobs during his Independence Day speech in Patna last year; Students are asking whether that promise was for the unemployed youth of Bihar or other states?

If opposition parties ask such questions, the ruling party will generally not care, but if common people start asking such questions, it will worry the leaders of the ruling coalition. BJP leaders are targeting Nitish Kumar as he is conducting meetings of 45 MLAs, 23 MLCs and 16 Lok Sabha MPs fearing a stampede in JDU. JD-U leaders, however, said it was just a routine meeting where the chief minister wanted to know the ground reality and the mood of the voters.

Nitish Kumar is already facing flak for poor implementation of prohibition, sand mining and rising incidents of crime. Nitish Kumar is known for the politics of anti-Yadav Luv-Kush (Kurmi-Kushwaha) equation in Bihar. Yadav is the vote bank of Lalu Prasad Yadav and Muslims also have faith in RJD. The Muslim community does not trust Nitish Kumar wholeheartedly because of his earlier ties with the BJP, though he has not allowed any major communal violence in the state during his tenure. Even the communal violence in Sasaram and Biharsharif during Ram Navami this year was brought under control within a few days.

However, it is also discussed in the political circles of Bihar that whenever Nitish Kumar holds a one-to-one meeting with his MLAs, he takes major decisions after a few days. The last time he held a meeting in June 2022 and in August he carried out his Paltimar programme. Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had named several leaders for their alleged involvement in scams but did not name Nitish Kumar. Recently, BJP leader Sushil Modi also met him at Raj Bhavan, which is also a topic of discussion.