Whenever I hear the derogatory label of ‘Paltu Kumar’ for Nitish Kumar, I feel distressed, because this is not what he was meant to be. When I joined him in January 2013, after resigning from the Indian Foreign Service and my then assignment as Ambassador of India, Bhutan, he was anything but ‘Paltu Kumar’. In fact, he was almost universally recognised as one of the most polished products of the socialist movement, a man of personal integrity, well-educated with a degree in engineering, and the sobriquet of ‘Sushasan Babu’—a leader with administrative acumen.

At that time, he was also at the peak of his power. The JD(U), which he helmed, was by far the largest party in Bihar. The BJP, an alliance partner, was the smaller, subsidiary party. In 2010, Nitish Kumar had won an unprecedented endorsement for the good he had done for Bihar after the fifteen years of ‘Jungle Raj’ of the Lalu regime (1990-2005). He was the unchallenged leader, a man of great ideological clarity, political insight, and a visionary with a razor-sharp mind.

It is painful to recall what Nitish Kumar became after 2017. Like an uncertain trapeze artist, he swung from the RJD to the BJP, from the BJP to the RJD, and then again back to the........

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