Days of Opportunistic alliances are over

 

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Licking their wounds after the humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, two former Bihar Chief Ministers—fodder scam tainted Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar — have joined hands for their political survival in Bihar.

What is interesting in the entire drama being scripted in Bihar is the fact that more than any ideology, it is sheer political pragmatism for the two arch rivals to come together. They are raising the non-existent bogey of social justice to justify their alliance. I am not sure if there are any takers for the quarter of a century old formula of social justice, milked to the hilt, in Bihar or elsewhere. There is reason for skepticism. People in the two States of so called social justice experiment—Bihar and Uttar Pradesh — have seen how the votaries of the idea have got neck deep into corruption, nepotism and bad governance. For them social justice over the years has been a theory to gobble the votes of the OBCs, Dalits and minorities. After coming to power, they impose family rule with an inefficient Government thrown-in which lacks any idea or vision, neck deep as it is in corruption.

Besides social justice, Lalu, the chieftain of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JD-U) has tried to raise the ghost of communalism once again. This is a time-tested political formula, which used to give good electoral dividends till a decade back. But this formula no longer gets you the desired results. You cannot force the minority community time and again to vote for you if you don’t do anything for them and only instill fear and a sense of insecurity in them.

It seems Lalu Prasad hasn’t learnt his lessons despite being repeatedly rejected by the electorate. Fodder scam tainted, Lalu cannot contest any election now as he is a convict in the infamous case. But this has not prevented him from foisting his wife, brother-in-laws, father-in-laws, daughter and now son on the people of Bihar in the name of social justice and checking communalism. Now almost everyone knows that those who got “social justice” as per the formula of Lalu Prasad were only his family and no one else. Fifteen years of non-governance and what Nitish Kumar always described as “jungle raj” did immense harm to Bihar, something from which it is yet to recover. Spare a thought for the people of the State, Mr Prasad.

Nitish Kumar, on the other hand, is a confused person now. An egoist, he does not know how to react to the situation after he walked out of his 17-year-old alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). So when it was obvious that Narendra Modi would be the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP, Kumar perhaps made the biggest political mistake of his life by severing ties with the time-tested alliance partner. The BJP and the JD(U) (earlier Samata Party) had been through thick and thin and fought the “jungle raj” of Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi together. The entire winning formula of Kumar always had the BJP as an integral part, a legacy which he is trying to disown rather late in his political career.

Committing one mistake after the other, instead of making good governance an issue for the State, Kumar has now gone back to the of secular-communal debate and social justice to fetch votes. I am sure, when Kumar introspects, he will realise that it was an opportunity lost by severing ties with the BJP. With the BJP in power in the Centre, he would have had a great opportunity to further develop the State with Central help. The saffron party was playing second fiddle to the JD(U) in Bihar and would have continued that way. But now, when the BJP has single handedly demolished both RJD and JD(U) with little known strength of another ally, Ram Vilas Paswan of the LJP, there is no looking back.

The third angle in the troika of RJD-JD(U) is the Congress, which is fighting for its survival not only in the Hindi heartland but also all over the country. By-elections are being held for 10 Assembly seats on August 21 in the State and for the first time, the grand alliance of RJD-JD(U)-Congress will take on the BJP. The very formation of this three-party alliance is the realisation that the BJP has now emerged out of the shadows and become the biggest player in Bihar.

If this alliance, based without any principles and ideology but only on common threat of the BJP, wins a majority of the seats in the by-elections, it may continue till the Assembly polls. However, if the BJP-LJP alliance repeats the performance of the Lok Sabha elections, I am sure Lalu-Nitish would start questioning its effectiveness. The three-party alliance has been created in haste without the bonding of social classes, ideology, ideas and a roadmap and would collapse sooner or later due to the sheer weight of its inner contradictions.

Ironically, some see the alliance in Bihar purely in mathematical terms, subtracting and adding votes of each party to decide who the winner would be. But votes are not polled this way. It is a social, anthropological and electoral science and not mathematics where you add a caste and subtract another to get results in a given constituency.

In the Lok Sabha elections, the three-party alliance got 44.3 per cent of votes while BJP-led NDA got 38.8 per cent.  In the 2010 Assembly elections, this RJD-JDU-Congress together polled 49.83 per cent votes against the 23.21 per cent of BJP-LJP. But the entire theory of percentage arrived like this is a fallacy and is based on the premise that people only vote on the basis of caste, community, religion etc, and not on issues, development and governance.

Even Yadavs (vote bank of the RJD) and Kurmis (vote bank of Kumar) have been historically antagonistic and such an alliance is yet to be tested electorally on the ground. Already, there are reports of antagonism between the two. Then, how can anyone believe that the entire Yadav community in the State is behind Lalu and Kurmi caste behind Kumar. Lalu’s wife Rabri Devi lost from the Yadav bastion of Saran while his daughter Misa Bharti lost from another Yadav bastion of Pataliputra in the Lok Sabha polls.

Nitish Kumar has already become the junior partner in the alliance and the RJD supporters say it is now a fight between them and the BJP with JD(U) and the Congress remaining only as fringe players. The message is clear. If at all a chance comes to form the next Government in Bihar in 2015, it will be RJD (read Rabri Devi or Misa Bharti as Chief Minister).

Ironically, Lalu wants this khichdi in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh as well when he urged the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party to join hands against the BJP. While Mulayam Singh Yadav lapped up the idea, Mayawati immediately rejected it, leading to its premature death. Perhaps Lalu is still living in 1989 or 1990 when a disaster called the Third Front existed. People and parties have moved but Lalu wants to take them back in the era of Mandal politics and keep them pinned to casteism, non-governance and development. Mr Prasad, it was time you too moved on and fought on policies and programmes rather than on the redundant and obsolete ideas of the past. (August 18. 2014) 

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