India Today

NITISH THE KINGMAKER

*Rest others

Politics may have put them on different planes but fate had Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and his former deputy Tejaswi Yadav on the same plane on June 5. Or, more specifically the Tata Vistara flight from Patna to Delhi. The young Tejaswi, seated in Row 2, got up to greet the Janata Dal (United) patriarch, hands folded. Nitish enquired about his back, since the toll of holding 251 election rallies had evidently begun telling on the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) scion, seen as he was campaigning in a wheelchair or with a waist belt. Lalu’s son assured Nitish that all was well.

The political scars, though, may take longer to heal. Despite a spirited campaign focused on employment and livelihood, Tejaswi proved no match for the combined might of Nitish and the BJP, though

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