Patna used to have a coffee house on the Dak Bungalow Road those days and old friends of Nitish Kumar remember an afternoon spent there. They were young then, and fired by socialism. The discussion turned to principles in politics and the friends recall what Kumar had then said. To secure power, he had argued, the means justified the end. But once power was secured, he held that one had to honour the principles of governance.

That could explain the new Bihar chief minister’s flirtation with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The socialist leader must have joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance knowing fully well that there wasn’t place in Bihar for both him and Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad. The streak of pragmatism might also explain why a man often described as “personally honest” would solicit the help of musclemen to win elections.

But hours after it became clear earlier this week that the Kurmi leader was set to become the chief minister of Bihar for the second time, he told the media that no “tainted” man would find a place in his ministry. Talk of politics being the art of the impossible or of balancing contradictions!

The paradox was also manifest when the Janata Dal (United) leader was the railway minister in New Delhi. His supporters would often call on him for favours and return crestfallen after being curtly told that the minister would only follow the rules. “What is the use of making him a minister,” a senior leader had fumed, “if he cannot oblige our loyal workers?”

But the same Nitish Kumar turned a blind eye to lucrative railway contracts being given on a platter to the strongman of Mokama and terror in the region, Suraj Bhan. Even close friends whispered that his confidant and now an MP, Lallan Singh ? an upper caste Bhumihar like Bhan ? was taking advantage of his proximity to the minister. But Nitish looked the other way, for he clearly needed their support.

Notwithstanding such strong streaks of pragmatism and opportunism, many believe that the man has steel in his spine. In 1991, Nitish, then in the larger Janata family, fell out with Lalu Prasad ? after a characteristically intemperate outburst by the latter ? and decided to have a showdown. Nitish, then Union agriculture minister, wanted a meeting convened of Janata Dal legislators to replace Lalu Prasad. Lalu Prasad, who was the state chief minister, went to his house twice to make up, but Kumar refused to meet him.

Clearly, the engineer from Nalanda is a no-nonsense man who wears his dignity on his sleeve. And in a state where the line between politics and corruption is a thin one, Kumar is often seen as someone who has kept away from the spoils of politics.

Take the road to his ancestral village Kalyanbigha. Although in his chequered political career Nitish Kumar has been a Union minister of railways, surface transport and agriculture, the road is still in bad shape. Not that Kumar didn’t have clout ? he ensured that all eight constituencies in his home district got connected by rail, set up an ordnance factory and a hospital for beedi workers. But the road remains as it was, for Kumar is hyper-sensitive to public criticism.

Which, some say, explains why he is given to resigning at the drop of a hat. In 1991, Kumar had sought to step down from the Union cabinet after public criticism of his functioning by party MPs. He resigned as railway minister after the Gaisal train accident in 1999 and resigned again in 2003 after JD(U) MPs criticised him in the presence of party president George Fernandes. Luckily for Kumar, his resignation was never accepted. But a frosty Fernandes ? whose quarrel with Kumar is now an open secret ? hinted that he was prone to sulks.

Strong willed and stubborn, he is not averse to voicing dissent ? but is a stickler for protocol and propriety. Not once this week did he say a word against Buta Singh, the controversial governor who recommended that the Bihar Assembly be dissolved. Nor did he utter a word against Lok Janshakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan during the entire electoral campaign. And this when Paswan had provocatively and publicly declared in April, “Who is Nitish Kumar? He is a nobody in JD(U).”

Kumar didn’t deign to reply, for the answer was in the air. In fact, so confident was he of the electoral outcome that long before the polling was over he had started predicting an absolute majority for the NDA. “I have been in politics long enough to know the signs,” he would say and point out that never before had he addressed such large gatherings of poor people. “There were meetings when a dirty and crumpled dhoti would stand out in the crowd of the poorest,” he said, convinced that people were finally fed up with the Lalu-Rabri raj in the state.

His friends advised restraint but the man, who first won a seat in the Assembly in 1985, after losing twice in 1977 and 1980, remained unfazed. He, in fact, took time off from campaigning this time, specially in the evenings, to invite experts to brief him on various issues such as law and order, Maoist movements and agricultural crises. Some insisted that the man was only doing his homework. Some thought he was counting his chickens before they were hatched.

Nitish Kumar has had the last laugh.