Barackface

Saturday, December 08, 2012

The Nitish Magic

The NDA Option For Nitish
A Roadmap For Nitish
Nitish Is My Lula

Nitish is the best Chief Minister India has today, and has had for the past several years. The guy gave Bihar a 16% growth rate this past year. That is putting China to shame.

If Nitish is not the next Prime Minister of India then there is something wrong with Indian democracy.

It is possible neither the BJP nor the Congress go past 200 seats in 2014.

The best outcome would be for the BJP to realize that Bihar is bigger than Gujarat. And Bihar is doing better than Gujarat. And pushing Nitish as the NDA's PM candidate expands the NDA. With Modi at the helm, the NDA might get reduced to one party.

Being the NDA's PM candidate is also the best option for Nitish. That would snuff out Mulayam's chances. Mulayam is not a great PM candidate in the first place. The NDA option is better for Nitish than any Third Front option.

JD (U) - 27
BJP - 150
Trinamool Congress - 20
Shiv Sena - 10
Biju Janata Dal - 15
BSP - 20
SP - 15
RJD - 5
DMK - 15
AIADMK - 10
JD (S) - 2
CPI (M) - 15
Others - 20

Total - 324

The BJP will have less than half the weight in the new coalition. And so it would make even more sense to see Nitish at the helm. There is no way Modi could pull together a coalition like this one. For Nitish it would be easy.

With his focus on development Nitish might be able to bring about a bipolarization in Indian politics. Either you are with the Congress or you are with Nitish. The various Janata Dals might become one again and make another go for a national presence.

If Nitish is not pro poor I don't know who is. The communist parties are going to have to come along.

Indian general election, 2009 - Wikipedia
India's massive general election
BJP, minorities, and 2014 elections
NDA strides past UPA

If elections were held today, it would be NDA's comeback moment. UPA, which at 171-181 seats (against its actual 259 in 2009), is trailing behind NDA, whose tally stands at a respectable 195-205 (as against its actual 159).