The ‘end of an era’ is a cliché deployed ad nauseam for the political transition Bihar is set to witness as it awaits a new Chief Minister. However, there are several prisms through which to evaluate this change.
The most significant of these is the shift in the command centre. Thirty six years after Lalu Prasad Yadav took office in 1990, breaking what had largely been a Congress continuum, the Chief Minister’s seat is returning to a national party. Delhi, not Patna, will now call the shots. Whoever is chosen for the Chief Minister’s chair will no longer be the final arbiter. He, or possibly she, will have to heed the leadership in Delhi. The political longevity that both Lalu and Nitish Kumar enjoyed is not something the incoming Chief Minister will inherit. They will have to guard their flanks, and watch for other aspirants who will be waiting for them to slip.
