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00:00 Outlook brings to you excerpts from its latest issue titled "Omni-Present, Omniscent".
00:06 The issue looks at Modi's personality, his cult and his brand in the light of the recent consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya,
00:14 which also kick-starts the election campaign.
00:17 Modi is an avatar, a statesman, a saint.
00:21 Beyond Hindutva, there is now the Moditva project.
00:25 From the overlap, a section that looks at news and emerging events from Outlook's special lens.
00:32 A non-ideological journey by Abhig Bhattacharya from Outlook.
00:37 Nitish Kumar's act of shifting ideological positions evokes a very complex question.
00:43 Does ideology matter at all in contemporary politics?
00:48 In the run-up to the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections, when Nitish Kumar was fighting without his traditional ally, Bharatiya Janata Party,
00:56 for the first time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi commented that the party made a big sacrifice by making Kumar the CM in 2005.
01:05 Soon after, senior JDU leaders jumped in to defend their leader and said it was Kumar's popularity that forced the BJP to elect him.
01:15 Modi's Jaibhat Kumar did not come out of nowhere.
01:19 He was the only NDA member who in 2013 strongly opposed Modi's projection as the Prime Ministerial candidate.
01:27 He also made this the ground to end 17 years of their political relationship and pave the way for a new coalition, the Mahagatbandhan.
01:38 But the bitterness did not last long.
01:41 In 2017, Kumar quit the Mahagatbandhan and rejoined the NDA.
01:46 However, in 2022, he again quit the NDA and rejoined the Mahagatbandhan, only to be back in 2024, just before the Lok Sabha elections.
01:59 Probably sensing which way the political winds are blowing.
02:03 Some may question his flip-flops, but one thing is evident - he will always have his way.
02:09 As Kumar is getting ready for his second Lok Sabha innings under the leadership of Modi,
02:14 sources from IndiaBlock told Outlook that the two parties made a deal before he officially announced his return to the NDA.
02:23 The first component of the deal was conferring the Bharat Ratna posthumously to Karpoori Thakur,
02:29 the former Chief Minister of Bihar, who hails from the extremely backward class NAI community.
02:36 It was done to consolidate Kumar's Love-Kush vote bank, the alliance of the agricultural kurmi and the Koiri castes that has remained his support base.
02:46 The second was related to the much-awaited special package for the state.
02:51 Though the political deal is not public, the congratulatory tweets of PM Modi addressing Kumar
02:58 and the Bihar CM's response showing gratitude pushes one to read between the lines.
03:04 Kumar's act of shifting ideological positions from being a Modi-baiter to his Grateful Soldier evokes a very complex question -
03:12 does ideology matter at all in today's politics?
03:16 To understand this, one needs to revisit the time when Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav used to be close friends
03:24 and were the proponents of social justice politics.
03:28 For this and more, read the latest issue of Outlook.