VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
Mahatma Gandhi started his
experiments of mass mobilisation from Champaran, 96 years ago in 1917. As
Champaran and Bihar prepare to celebrate the centenary
of the mass movement against the British Indigo planters and the setting up of
the Bhitiharwa Ashram in the district, Congress sits on the sidelines wondering
what to do to regain its lost base in the State.
It has been almost a quarter of
century when Congress lost its dominant political space to resurgent OBC
politics of the State. A visit to the district Congress office in the heart of
the small town of Bettiah , the
headquarters of West Champaran district, illustrates the
position of Congress in the region and the State.
The district headquarters of the
127-year-old party hardly hosted any function or had any visitors for the last
several years. The wooden doors and even its frames have been removed from most
of the rooms over a period of time by the miscreants and the dilapidated
building in a sprawling complex could fall anytime. There is no chair or table
anywhere and no one visits the place. Even the children of the nearby areas do
not play in the compound which has no boundary wall, fearing that this could be
a haunted place. Stray buffaloes and pigs make merry in the pools of water in
the monsoons.
A day before Independence Day
this year, the sprawling 2-acre complex in the heart of the town, was inundated
in knee-deep water till someone realised late in the afternoon that the
national flag had to be unfurled the next day. A cut was hurriedly made to
ensure that the rain water collected in the complex could be drained out. On
Independence Day, merely three people turned out for the flag hoisting ceremony
and the senior most amongst them, an 81-year old, was given the honour of
unfurling the Tricolor. After doing the honours, the senior citizens simply
walked to their houses in the vicinity. They were doing the ritual for the last
few years only out of habit and the sentiments attached to Independence Day.
They swore by the name of Mahatma Gandhi but none of them believed in policies
and programmes of the Congress of this century under Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi
and Manmohan Singh.
The state of the Congress office
in the district, often called the Karma Bhoomi of Mahatma Gandhi, a Congress
bastion for decades, reflects the position of the party in the rest of Bihar .
Not surprisingly, Congress last won a Lok Sabha election in West
Champaran parliamentary constituency (earlier Bettiah) almost 30
years ago in 1984 when a sympathy wave after assassination of Indira Gandhi saw
it through. Ask the local residents here and they will tell you that this
parliamentary constituency would not send a Congress nominee to Parliament for
the next two decades unless a miracle happened.
Not only West
Champaran constituency but in entire Bihar ,
a realignment of political forces and castes is taking place after the
17-year-old alliance between JDU and BJP ended on a bitter note. In this
quagmire of alignments and emerging caste equations, no one for sure knows how
the three main parties-JDU, BJP and Lalu Prasad’s RJD would fare in the Lok
Sabha elections in the State. Congress has been practically written off unless
it manages an alliance with JDU. Even Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar will have a
tough time in Sasaram if she contests as people of the State and her
constituency saw her only on TV news channels not in the State and amongst the
people who elected her.
Of the 40 members it sends to Lok
Sabha, JDU got 20, BJP 12, RJD 4, Congress 2 and Independents 2 in the 2009 polls. As the caste
equations assiduously built over the last almost two decades by JDU-BJP has
gone topsy-turvy, even the seasoned political analysts in Bihar
would find it difficult to predict the pre 2014 voter mood. BJP could gain in
the State but Lalu Prasad’s RJD too is expected to do better than last time.
The caste combinations of all the parties have crumbled and there is little
time now to consolidate and cultivate new vote banks.
The Muslims in the State are
divided between JDU and RJD and even though JDU would get a chunk of their
votes as Nitish Kumar withdrew from the NDA on the issue of Narendra Modi, RJD
is not a pushover. It has started a campaign saying how Kumar will join NDA
after the polls and how he was with the BJP all these years. This has confused
the Muslims who will go for strategic voting, looking for a candidate of either
the JDU or RJD who is in a better position to defeat BJP in each of the 40
seats.
This polarisation and strategic
voting by Muslims would help BJP in several segments and give it an opportunity
to consolidate its upper caste vote bank and also get the votes of urban OBCs
and even upwardly mobile dalits. But the gains are not significant as it has
lost significant sections of the poorer OBCs or what is called the non-creamy
layer due to its alliance with JDU. While the Yadav community nurses the
ambition of getting Lalu Prasad a dominant political space and the Kurmi
community to Nitish Kumar, it is the other intermediary castes which are being
targeted by all the parties to get a lion’s share of votes.
Both JDU and BJP will have to
select 40 candidates each and that is not an easy task as last time they fought
on 25 and 15 seats, respectively. Political turncoats are sensing an opportunity
here and they can switch seamlessly from one party to the other.
Sadhu Yadav, brother in-law of
Lalu Prasad, has met Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi indicating that no
one is untouchable. He fought on a Congress ticket from West
Champaran last time and could well be a BJP candidate anywhere in
the State in 2014. JDU has realised that there could be desertions in a closely
fought contest and has taken back the suspension of its MPs. BJP is closely
watching the situation and doing its homework to select 25 winning candidates.
As 2014 could perhaps be the last time before the political obituary of RJD is
written, the party is motivated and already campaigning.
The churning of caste and
community equations is still taking place in Bihar even
though polls are not far off. The macro issues of performance of UPA and development
would be the core issues along with the micro issues of caste equations and
consolidation of newer vote banks. At this juncture, Bihar is headed for a
three-way contest but the most bitter fight will be between the old allies-JDU
and BJP. (August 19, 2013)
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