Patna: At the rally held by the RLSP at Gandhi Maidan last week, Union minister Upendra Kushwaha's supporters raised slogans like "Mukhya Mantri Kaisa Ho, Upendra Kushwaha Jaisa Ho" were raised by his supporters. Although Kushwaha has been a chief minister in waiting for a decade, there seems to be good news for him. Lalu is ready to project Kushwaha as chief minister candidate if he switches over from the NDA, RJD sources said.

"The logic behind accepting Kushwaha as the CM candidate is expanding the social base," an RJD former minister explained. "If we are to challenge the NDA in the Lok Sabha elections and the Assembly elections, we have to expand our base. The Muslim-Yadav combination is substantial, but not a winning combination."

The other reason for accepting Kushwaha is the belief that he is much more "pliable" than Nitish Kumar. The argument given in the RJD is that Tejashwi Yadav has time in his favour and can afford to wait for the "right moment" to step in as CM. But if the party projects Tejashwi as CM candidate all other castes may rally round the NDA.

The Kushwahas are the second-largest block in Bihar after the Yadavs among the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Their population in Bihar varies from 6 to 8 per cent of the population. In the run-up to gaining acceptability after he left Lalu in 1994, Nitish Kumar and his then Samata Party propounded the "Luv-Kush" (Kurmi-Kushwaha) combination increasing the bargaining capacity of this combination in power sharing. For the last 15 years Kushwahas have been anti-Lalu and voted against the RJD unless the candidate happened to belong to the caste. The Kushwahas have played a major role in making NDA a formidable force in Bihar.

During the last decade or so there have been several claimants - such as former Union minister Nagmani, former minister Shakuni Choudhary and Upendra Kushwaha - for the leadership of the Kushwaha caste. But all the three have had pockets of influence that do not stretch across Bihar. All these leaders have proved to be frequent party hoppers.

It was Nitish who brought Upendra Kushwaha to political prominence by making him the leader of Opposition in the Assembly in 2004 when Sushil Kumar Modi moved to Delhi as Lok Sabha MP. Since then Kushwaha has fallen out twice with Nitish and has never hidden his ambition to be the CM of Bihar one day.

Right now he is denying he will desert the NDA, but many question whether that will continue. "The question is if Kushwaha can be trusted or will he prove to be another Nitish Kumar," remarked another RJD leader.