Has the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost the battle in Bihar by taking away Nitish Kumar from the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)? Would it become difficult for the BJP to weaken the Mahagathbandhan in Bihar?
“The BJP, of course, has got psychological advantage by bringing the Bihar CM and Janata Dal (United) president from the INDIA bloc, of which he was the architect. But there is a palpable anger among the people against Nitish. The BJP will have to pay the price for accepting him back to its fold,” the election strategist turned activist, Prashant Kishor said.
Kishore predicted, “Irrespective of whatever alliance Nitish contests with, his party won’t be able to win more than 20 seats in the assembly polls.” Kishore, who is on his Jan Suraj padyatra in north Bihar’s Begusarai district these days, has been advancing this argument in his speeches as well as his interviews with the media.
The widely held ‘assumption’ that the BJP’s victory is a “done deal” particularly after Nitish jumping to its side has subsumed the likely troubles that the Hindutva party might face in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, expected in April-May, this year.
The first and foremost trouble which the BJP is all set to face is over sharing of seats. Nitish’s JDU and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Ram Vilas Paswan (alive then) were the part of the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2019. The BJP and the JDU had shared 17 seats each, sparing six seats for the LJP. The NDA had won 39 seats—BJP-17, JDU-16 and LJP-6.
Now, besides Nitish’s JDU, the BJP has Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Aawam Morcha – Secular (HAMS), Chirag Paswan’s LJP and his uncle Pashupatinath Paras’s Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) are in the NDA. Creating a buzz in the name of Ram temple and around Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘persona’, the BJP cadres are clamouring for more seats than what they had contested in Bihar in 2019.
The RLSP, the HAMS, the LJP and the RLJP, which have been with the BJP from before Nitish’s JDU has joined it, are, obviously, expecting their share of seats. There are only 40 seats in the state to share with. How many seats the BJP will keep in its share and how much will it spare for its five other partners? Needless to say that there is an apparent disquiet in the camps of these parties on Nitish’s return in the NDA; their lack of enthusiasm was obvious at Nitish’s ninth swearing-in as the CM at Patna’s Raj Bhavan on Saturday-January 28.
But in the ‘hullabaloo’ of how the BJP has ‘dismantled’ the INDIA bloc by taking away Nitish from it and how the INDIA bloc is locked in crisis over seat sharing in Bengal, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, the media is largely ignoring the challenges the BJP might face in the state.
Ground reality
Statistics suggest that though Nitish has managed to retain his position as the CM despite his five flip-flops, he has increasingly lost his popularity at the grassroots level. His JDU had bagged barely two seats in 2014 Lok Sabha elections at the time when the CM had broken out with the BJP for the first time and hadn’t suffered a dent in his image. His JDU and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of Lalu Prasad Yadav contested the 2015 assembly polls in alliance, sharing 101 seats each between them. The JDU bagged 71 seats against the RJD’s 80.
The JDU contested the 2020 assembly elections in alliance with the BJP in which the JDU got 122 seats against the BJP’s 121 in its share. But the BJP won the 76 seats against the JDU’s 43 (45 now by splitting the LJP). The JDU alleged that the BJP, by propping Chirag Paswan to contest against the JDU candidates had caused its defeat in 32 seats. But the fact remains that the voters voted against Nitish’s party. On the other hand, the RJD led by Tejaswhi Yadav almost retained its tally (79), emerging as the single largest party despite the JDU had gone back to the BJP. Thus, the Lok Sabha and assembly elections from 2014 onwards clearly suggest substantial loss of Nitish’s clout at the grassroots level.
Prashant Kishore’s claim that “the BJP will have to pay the price for bringing Nitish back to its fold” sounds convincing in the light of the statistics related to the elections from 2014 onwards. Moreover, it will be well nigh impossible for Nitish to claim the credit for the caste survey, increasing the reservation up-to 65% and giving over four lakh jobs after dumping the Mahagathbandhan and jumping back to the BJP.
Rahul Gandhi
In his first reaction on Nitish’s exit, the Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi, on his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra at Purnia on Tuesday-January 30 said, “The Mahagathbandhan will fight for social justice in Bihar; we don’t require Nitish Kumar for that purpose, we don’t require him at all”. The grand party scion’s assertion is quite logical in the sense that Nitish’s departure has made it relatively easy for the Mahagathbandhan to share seats among its partners.
Leaders of parties in the INDIA alliance in Mumbai on September 1.
The RJD which is the largest partner in the Mahagathbandhan has got more space to accommodate the claim of the Congress and the Left parties (CPI-ML-Liberation, CPI and CPM) which are inherently uncompromising with the Hindutva and designed to contest the elections for the larger cause of secularism and social and economic justice that involves the issues of price-rise, livelihood, health, disparity, deprivation and segregation of the minorities.
Moreover, Lalu Prasad Yadav—a smart operator of power game despite his old age, ailments and heat of the investigating agencies – might be looking for Jitan Ram Manjhi, Upendra Kushwaha, Chirag Paswan and others in case they were denied the desired share of seats and desert the BJP in the run-up to the assembly elections. The RJD at its meeting on the day of Nitish exit from Mahagathbandhan has authorized Lalu—the RJD president—to take all the decisions in the wake of the new developments in Bihar.
The BJP president J.P. Nadda asserted that his party would win “40 out of 40 seats” in Bihar with Nitish back in the NDA. But much water might flow down the Ganga in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Nalin Verma is a senior journalist, author, media educator, and independent researcher in folklore.
