Nalin Verma 
The results of the Delhi Assembly elections have led to news outlets speculating that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which wrested power from the Aam Admi Party might gain into strength to secure the same on its own in Bihar due for polls in October/November this year.
It’s an unrealistic speculation. Bihar and Delhi are stories in contrast, and given the ground realities and socio-political behaviour of the electorate in the two states, it’s downright naïve to draw a parallel between them. The Delhi results will have little impact in Bihar.
Kejriwal’s rise and fall
Arvind Kejriwal, a firebrand right to information activist then, rising on the crest of the Anna Hazare led movement against systemic corruption and constitution of Lok Pal, gained phenomenal popularity among the aam aadmi [common people].
To be fair to him, he offered an alternative politics in true sense, picking his candidates from the lot of an apolitical class of slum dwellers, street vendors, auto drivers, daily wagers, cart pullers and migrant workers.
In the process, he empowered the class of people insulted, exploited and harassed by the powers that be. He offered dignity to the “unauthorised settlers” who were being treated with contempt by the police and administration.
The “enforcers of the law”, caned them and ransacked their make-shift houses on the daily basis without recognising that they sweated it out to build the skyscrapers, posh localities, roads, bridges and highways that are the hallmark of the national capital.
The coughing and muffler wearing Kejriwal emerged as a metaphor of the common man whereas his aam-aadmi embossed cap wearing and broom-holding volunteers perfectly jelled with the construction workers, vendors and cart-pullers toiling it out on the streets.
In 2013, he dethroned the Congress’s three-time chief minister, Sheila Dikshit but AAP’s victory was not adequate to let him have his sway in Delhi. His real victory came in 2015 when his party bagged 67 seats, smashing the BJP which was a rising force under the stewardship of Narendra Modi in the rest of the country at that time.
A strong of section of lower middle-class and women in general in Delhi, too, got attracted to Kejriwal’s politics because of his landmark initiatives like opening mohalla clinics and improving the government schools.
But, simultaneous with his stupendous victory also came in the “vices” afflicting his party. Kejriwal, systematically disowned the ways that had made him the “hero” of the aam aadmi. The number of AAP MLAs went down from 67 to 62 in 2020, reflecting the weaknesses setting in, in his operations. Still it was big enough to invisibilise his shortcomings.
What could have cushioned Kejrwal was an inclusive political ideology in the face of the BJP’s multi-pronged attack on him. But, be by his design or his naiveté, Kejriwal, discarded Yogendra Yadav and several other leaders who were capable to define and shape the party’s ideology against the neo-BJP’s radical Hindutva powered by the corporate houses and the upper bureaucracy in Indian executive and judicial system.
Bereft of ideology, he emulated the BJP with regard to the issue of reservation for the marginalised classes, communalism and Kashmir. He tried to present himself as a more radical Hindutva protagonist than the Sangh Parivar, ignoring the mayhem on the minorities being carried out relentlessly by the Hindutva zealots.
He joined the BJP in attacking the Tablighi Jamaat for spreading corona and kept away from the harangued minorities at Shaheen Bagh.
It will be unfair to say that he has turned corrupt simply on the basis of the central investigating agencies implicating him and his party leaders in corruption cases, for it’s an open secret that the BJP has unabashedly been using these agencies against its political opponents.
But, it’s hard to deny that Kejriwal lost his way which was evident in preferring the “Sheesh Mahal” as his abode, selecting his candidates for the Rajya Sabha. For the reason best known to him, the coughing and muffler wearing Kejriwal morphed himself into a confrontationist and over-ambitious leader, turning his attention away from Delhi and pushing him in several other states with different realities.
Bihar is a different story
The phenomena of Arvind Kejriwal never excited Bihar. Even though Delhi has large share of migrant workers from Bihar, Kejriwal, even at the time of his rise in 2013 onwards, didn’t create an impact in Bihar. His party fielded candidates in 2015 and 2020 assembly elections, but they went unnoticed. Unsurprisingly, his fall, too, is largely unnoticed in the context of the electorate’s thinking and behaviour at the ground level.
Unlike Delhi, Bihar is bereft of the classical middle class. The people are still steeped in the feudal economic and social structure. Away from looking for the amenities like schools, clinics, playgrounds, and healthcare system, the Bihar people are still involved in the battle for identity and existence, and political say.
In no way, the BJP can extend its advantage of its victory in Delhi to Bihar. Right from 2005 when the BJP formed its government in alliance with the socialist Nitish Kumar, the Hindutva outfit has tried all its tricks to have its unilateral sway in Bihar. It succeeded in other Hindi heartland states including Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, but it has failed to do so in Bihar.
It’s primarily because the party has failed to make inroads among the extremely backward classes [EBCs] which constitute 36% of the state’s population and Dalits with 15% in the manner it did in other states.
The party has effectively pocketed the caste Hindus support base from the Congress, but it has failed to create space for among the poor and marginalised classes, which continue to be with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of Lalu Prasad Yadav and the Janata Dal (United) JD (U) of Nitish Kumar.
The minorities, which the BJP perennially tries to render insignificant, combine with the backward classes behind the RJD – the main opposition party in the state – to deprive the BJP for gaining in power in Bihar.
Vulnerable EBCs & opportunity for Tejashwi
Plagued by his health condition and inability to govern effectively, Nitish Kumar seems to be on the last leg of his political journey. His condition has turned the EBCs vulnerable and uneasy. Nitish had carved out a viable political space for his party giving preferential treatment to the EBCs in the jobs and local bodies and in the process of taking them away from the RJD, which prior to his rise, represented all the backward classes.
A section of media – apparently supportive to the BJP – is trying to create the notion that the Hindutva outfit will be benefitted after the possible fall of Nitish Kumar. Given the socio-economic reality of Bihar, the marginalised communities won’t look for the BJP in case of Nitish’s fall. Rather, they will return to what they still feel as original home that the RJD had been for 15 long years before Nitish’s rise.
Tejashwi Yadav, a fast learner of the rope politics, is quite cognisant of it. He has explicitly asked his Yadav caste brethren to be accommodative and protective to the EBCs and he has been working overtime among the non-Yadav backward classes to win them back.
Of course, the BJP can make inroads into Nitish Kumar’s Kurmi caste-men who are involved in the battle of supremacy against the Yadavs, but it won’t make much difference with the prospects of the BJP in the state.
The BJP operates on the crutches of Nitish in the state. There is no way, the Hindutva party will gain if the crutch falls. In the event of the fall of Nitish, the BJP might be up against a stronger Tejaswhi Yadav and his RJD – by far the party of the largest social base in the state.
Nalin Verma is a senior journalist and author. He teaches mass communication and creative writing at Jamia Hamdard University, New Delhi.