Nitish Kumar's Allies To Measure How Firmly He Takes On PM Narendra Modi In UP

Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will decide today whether his party, the Janata Dal United or JDU, should take part directly in the Uttar Pradesh election. A six-hour meeting yesterday  between the Chief Minister and senior JDU leaders examined the pros and cons of entering the contest in the key state whose result will help forecast whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will return for a second term in 2019.

In recent months, Mr Kumar has upended political practice to provide public support to PM Modi whose controversial decision to ban high-denomination notes united the opposition against him. Not Mr Kumar, who resolutely refused to attack demonetisation while concurring with the PM on its potential in checking black money and terror-financing.

The Chief Minister's siding with the PM created friction with his allies, the Congress and Lalu Yadav, forcing Mr Kumar to explain to both parties that he is not strutting towards a reunion with the BJP, with whom he ended a nearly 20-year partnership in 2013 over its decision to choose Mr Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate.

In Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav, who wants to be re-elected for another term as Chief Minister, has combined with the Congress to take on the PM's party, the BJP, and Dalit leader Mayawati. Lalu Yadav, whose daughter is married into Akhilesh Yadav's family, has offered to campaign for the 43-year-old Samajwadi leader. The extent to which Mr Kumar and the JDU riposte the BJP will be measured carefully by the Bihar Chief Minister's partners. His aides say that he will address rallies in Uttar Pradesh only if the JDU runs its own candidates - and if so, he will propagate "Secular party jeetao, BJP harao" (support secularism, vote against the BJP).

The fact that he will otherwise not campaign in Uttar Pradesh against the BJP will be seen as politically-loaded, though his aides say that he will continue to fault PM Modi's government for failing to provide affirmative action to communities like the Jats and Patels and for pushing a uniform civil code which would end the practice of religious minorities regulating matters like marriage and divorce through their own laws.

Mr Kumar's party put up nearly 200  candidates in the last state election in Uttar Pradesh in 2012.  All performed so poorly that they had to forsake their deposit. So the significance of his role lies in how openly he supports the non-BJP front, not from a distance, but on the ground.