Patna: Number 13 is often associated with “bad luck”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself had a traumatic experience linked to the number when serial blasts rocked Patna’s Gandhi Maidan during his election rally in Oct 2013, killing six people and injuring around 80 others. Bihar was then ruled by the JD(U)-led govt headed by Nitish Kumar, who had broken ties with the BJP months earlier.Coincidentally, 13 years later, Prime Minister Modi, several Union ministers and Nitish Kumar were again present at Gandhi Maidan on Thursday to witness the expansion of the cabinet after the BJP assumed complete control of Bihar following Nitish’s decision to hand over power to the saffron party. BJP leaders described the occasion as a historic political moment.“Today’s event was indeed special as the PM was witness to the expansion of BJP-led govt in Bihar,” BJP spokesperson Manoj Sharma told TOI on Thursday. “It was also special because lotus had bloomed from Gangotri to Ganga Sagar and the Ganges flow from Bihar to reach Ganga Sagar,” he added.Although the NDA alliance of the BJP and JD(U) had governed Bihar together since 2005, Modi’s political relationship with Bihar witnessed sharp turns over the years. In Oct 2013, shortly after being declared the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate, Modi arrived in Patna to address a rally at Gandhi Maidan as Gujarat chief minister. Nitish Kumar had already snapped ties with the BJP, reportedly unhappy over Modi’s elevation as the NDA’s face.The JD(U) suffered a major setback in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, winning only two of Bihar’s 40 seats after contesting 38 constituencies. In contrast, the BJP-led NDA secured 31 seats.Relations between Modi and Nitish deteriorated further during the 2015 Bihar assembly elections when, despite an aggressive campaign led by the Prime Minister, the BJP-led NDA won only 58 seats against 178 secured by the Grand Alliance in the 243-member Assembly.However, political equations changed repeatedly over the next several years. Nitish returned to the NDA after quitting the Grand Alliance, later walked away again to rejoin the opposition camp, and eventually returned to the BJP-led alliance after 17 months.After more than two decades of sharing power with Nitish, the BJP finally secured full leadership in Bihar after Nitish shifted to national politics. The moment also coincided with the BJP’s historic victory in West Bengal, ending decades of Left and Trinamool Congress dominance in the state.
