Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Anything for power' that was published in Newsband

Anything for power

Nitish Kumar is harboring ‘PM’ ambitions and understands that Modi (who is also a backward caste leader) is a threat for him and wants to veto him.

It was Nitish Kumar's Railway ministry that called Godhra a mob attack. The report was later withdrawn by Laloo.

It is also funny that Nitish calls Advani a secular leader when he has been charged for the demolition of the mosque whereas there are no charges against Modi.

One wonders what these political leaders like Nitish Kumar mean by 'secular'. India professes to be a secular country, but its people and political leaders and the above all the constitution classify the citizens based on religion and caste and give constitutionally guaranteed discriminatory benefits to some. Every political party in India plays religious and caste cards un-ashamedly (especially during elections) and hence on what basis are they singling out Modi as anti-secular? Even starting from the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, every central government and state government have had religious or caste based atrocities aplenty and hence all political parties should consider themselves as in the same boat as far as secular credential are considered.

Media and others continue to use the word Securalism to hit people who are Hindus and support Hinduism, Anyone supporting Hindus is non secular and rest are all secular. Strange!

The Secular/Communal debate has no takers in Masses. It is only in the minds of politicians and they play it as per their convenience. Nitish Kumar is behaving as if he is the only custodian of Muslims in India but forgetting that there are Champions like Lalu's RJD, Paswan's LJP, Left and of course the grand old party Congress. It is only because he joined hands with BJP that he won Bihar. The moment he leaves NDA he will meet his Waterloo.

If Nitish Kumar walks out of NDA, he will lose very badly unless he aligns with Lalu or Paswan. If he aligns with Congress, with the present bad name of Congress, it could be worse. In a contest like that with BJP, Nitish, Lalu and Paswan and Congress, the worst would be for Nitish as he does not have any other state except Jharkhand and would be forced to accept Modi in the next election for Assembly or for Lok Sabha.

It would be advantage for Modi if somebody else is nominated by BJP and still not able to get power; Congress would then continue as UPA or otherwise. Then Modi would have huge support in BJP and would be the natural choice as the next PM after the failure of BJP in 2014, whenever the next general elections are held. Till such time he can be the Chief Minister of Gujarat whereas Nitish would be sulking after losing the Government in Bihar.

All the so called secular parties were once in power and had ministerial berths in Vajpayee Government including Karunanidhi and Lalu Prasad. Mulayam Singh and Mayavathi too had seat adjustments with BJP in UP. Even Communists had shared the Ministry along with Jana Sangh Party (now BJP) during SVD Govt in Bihar in 1967. Did they not realize during those times that BJP was a ‘Communal Party’ and not Secular?

These political parties somehow want power. That’s all!