Happy Diwali! Welcome to The Political Fix by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, a newsletter on Indian politics and policy. To get it in your inb...
Happy Diwali! Welcome to The Political Fix by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, a newsletter on Indian politics and policy. To get it in your inbox every week, sign up here. The newsletter was off last Friday for Diwali, but you can read previous Friday Q&As here.
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The Big Story: One Last Job?
Nitish Kumar will be sworn in as chief minister of Bihar for the seventh time on November 16. If he survives the entirety of the five-year term, Kumar will have become the state’s longest-serving chief minister.
This endurance is no small feat in any Indian state, and particularly at a moment when, as we wrote two weeks ago, the last few years have seen a number of long-serving chief ministers toppled by the public. It is even more impressive because Kumar does not come from either a forward caste or a dominant one like the Yadavs, hailing instead from the Kurmi community, who make up just around 2% of the Bihar population.
The other noteworthy detail – though it may not seem like a fact in his favour – is that Kumar and his Janata Dal (United)...
