India, March 11 -- Bihar chief minister (CM) Nitish Kumar has set out on the final leg of the Samriddhi Yatra in what seems to be a bid to introduce his son and heir, Nishant Kumar, to the electorate. The JD(U) seems to believe that the only glue that can hold together the party is Kumar, who has run the state for much of the past two decades. His appeal is primarily his record in office - the claim to have restored the rule of law and policy initiatives that helped win the trust of women voters - and the party now wants to send out the message that the son can be trusted with his father's legacy of clean politics. This is problematic - while political dynasties are dime a dozen, and span parties, not all have been successful in electoral politics. The JD(U)'s predicament is that it failed to grow beyond Kumar's persona despite holding office in Patna for a quarter century. Kumar is partly to blame - hyper-sensitive to potential competition, he did not encourage a second-run leadership. Nor did he build a grassroots organisation. The party's social justice inheritance has been reduced to smart electoral arithmetic, focused on the extremely backward castes and the non-Yadav OBCs. This social coalition was stitched around patronage and the political persona of Kumar. Over the last two elections, the JD(U)'s partner, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has become the political pole in Bihar, and the communities that once backed Kumar could shift their loyalty to it. In office - it is believed that the next CM will be from the BJP - the party could also make a claim to the development narrative owned solely by Kumar until now. As he begins his political journey, Nishant Kumar faces the enviable task of protecting his father's political capital even as he seeks to build his own....