India, July 18 -- Nitish Kumar is the longest serving chief minister of Bihar. He will seek re-election once again later this year. On Thursday, Kumar announced free power up to 125 units of electricity for domestic consumers in the state. The policy, according to rough calculations, could cushion household budgets by about Rs.500 per month. While power subsidies are pretty common in India by now, Nitish Kumar's use of them to seek his fifth term in power tells a story about his brand of politics and populism going from vanguard to rearguard. Here are four charts which describe this argument in detail.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Hindustan Times....