BJP-JD(U) face-off: Nitish falls back on Lalu's social formula

Nitish Kumar might have resorted to philosophical flourish - remember the allusion to life and death? - to underline a political point in New Delhi, but his politics is firmly rooted in smart thinking. The JD(U) leader, preparing for a life without the BJP in Bihar, is working on more than one option not just to survive but also to grow. He is onto a numbers game of a different kind. While making the whole of his address at the party national council meet anti-Narendra Modi, the Bihar chief minister was addressing a much larger audience than those assembled at Mavlankar Hall in the National Capital. It was an address to the Muslim support base that he has consciously cultivated all these years. “I don’t want to loose that support,” he said. His other message was that he or his party, JD(U), would like to play a much bigger role in the national politics. That’s not an unfair aspiration. [caption id=“attachment_701018” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. PTI[/caption] But in this case, as many believe in Nitish’s own party and outside, he is playing a calculated gamble. A section in the JD(U) is convinced that the upper caste disenchantment with Nitish Kumar is complete and even if the JD(U) and the BJP were to go together to the polls, the Rajputs, Bhumihar, Bhamins and Kayasthas were unlikely to vote for the JD(U). These upper castes form a solid social support base for the BJP. So if he were to loose support of these castes, he should compensate or actually gain with an aggressive hostile voting against the BJP by the Muslim community if JD(U) splits with the BJP while trying to stop the national march of Narendra Modi. As against 12-13 percent of upper castes, Muslims constitute of 14-16 percent of total electorate in the state. That was once RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s core constituency. His act of stopping Advani’s Ram Rath Yatra had made him a messiah of Muslims overnight. It’s a different matter though that the incident precipitated the fall of VP Singh’s regime in Delhi. By putting roadblocks in fulfillment of Modi’s prime ministerial ambition, Nitish would be angling to achieve what his state rival Lalu Yadav did over two decades ago. Ironically, after a decade of standing against everything that Lalu stood for and fighting him out, Nitish is now trying to emulate the social engineering formula that made Lalu rule the state for close to 15 years and be a minister for five years at the centre. It is against this backdrop that the wily politician in Nitish chose to completely omit any reference against the Congress. If his speech caused deep anguish and sense of hurt in the BJP, it was music to the ears for the Congress strategists. The Congress has for long making obvious overtures towards Nitish. The other argument why Nitish is making such an aggressive pitch against Modi is that there is a definite downslide in his popularity chart in the state and as compared to his first term the gap between popular expectations and delivery on the ground has been widening in his second term. He is steering the pre-poll talk to an emotional pitch. The electricity generation and supply position that he spoke of yesterday was still poor. Despite improvement of law and order situation and industries coming to Bihar, jobs are not being created either in private sector or in the government sector. The 2.32 lakh contract teachers appointed in his first term are up in arms against him and are today the biggest organized vocal critics of the chief minister. Some highways in the first term were fine but people now want their expansion. There’s similar disappointment in hospitals and education sectors too. The second term for Nitish was a historic positive mandate - he came back to power with a stunning three-fourth majority. Given the backwardness of the state, a mismatch of expectation and reality was in-built in that system. So whether it was campaign for special status for Bihar, a difficult thing to achieve since the NDC (National Development Council) has to have a consensus on the subject, and then the anti-Modi positioning, Nitish is tying to fight it out against a real or perceived villain, taking the popular attention off from the issues that a voter could have asked answers from. The BJP is not taking his posturing lying down. Yesterday BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman came out to caution Nitish that “the need of the hour is to defeat the non-performing and corrupt UPA. The Congress-led UPA government is leading this country to a downslide in every field. The BJP expects opposition parties and allies to keep their main focus on that. However, it is unfortunate, if they concentrate their energies on our chief ministers and dilute the focus of removing the UPA. The BJP will continue its determined efforts in this direction. We reject all unfounded inferences against Shri Narendra Modi.” Today some Bihar BJP leaders, including Giriraj Singh, Ashwini Chaubey (both ministers in Nitish Government) and former state BJP chief CP Thakur met party president Rajnath Singh to convey their sense of anger against Nitish. They termed Nitish’s speech humiliating to the BJP. Rajnath Singh has called a meeting of the state party unit on April 18 to have a candid chat with them and in the mean time consult his senior colleagues here. While a section is rooting for a retaliatory action by the BJP and is of the view that they would not stand to loose in Bihar if they bid goodbye to the JD(U), other leaders, including some influential senior leaders are not inclined to precipitate tension further, particularly when JD(U) has given time till December to chose their prime ministerial candidate. The BJP’s internal dynamics is also coming to play and there is a view that is gaining ground that party should make no hurry to declare its PM challenger and should take a call only after the poll results are out. Akali Dal leader Naresh Gujaral is now openly advocating this line. It is not clear yet how would Nitish react if the BJP declares Modi head of campaign committee anytime after Karnataka elections and thus indirectly projecting him as the leader.