VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
Whatever the psephologists, exit polls and the media which
parachuted in the State predicted, wrote or analysed, the victory of the Grand
Alliance (Mahagathbandhan) in Bihar elections was a foregone conclusion.
The reason was quite simple. The alliance started with a big
mathematical advantage of 30 percent in the caste-ridden society (Muslims,
Yadav and Kurmi voters) and the people of the State voted along traditional
lines — the way they have done since Mandal politics came into being and shaped
their thought process since 1989 onwards.
It would be wrong to assume that people of Bihar rejected the so
called communal politics of the BJP-RSS and adopted the so called secular
politics of the Grand alliance as some would like to believe. These issues were
not the core of the election campaign though it surfaced time and again during
the long five-phase election for the 243 member Bihar Assembly.
There were micro issues everywhere — every constituency had its
own caste arithmetic and dynamics, different issue and the campaign shaped
differently in each of these segments. Communalism or secularism hardly
affected the voters in the rural areas and of course the State is largely a
conglomeration of villages and except the district headquarters, there is
little urban expanse. Communal polarisation was at best limited to a few urban
pockets and the contours of the results remained unaffected by it. On the contrary,
caste polarisation largely determined the outcome. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s
comments on reservations helped RJD create caste frenzy amongst the OBCs, a
strategy Lalu Prasad has used deftly over the years.
The results showed that BJP held on to its urban support base to
some extent but failed miserably in penetrating the rural hinterland and break
the unwritten caste code of the last quarter of a century. The social coalition
which the BJP tried to build by an alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan (Lok Janshakti
Party), Jeetan Ram Manjhi (Hindustani Awam Morcha) and Upendra Kushwaha
(Rashtriya Lok Samta Party) simply did not have the kind of arithmetical base
which the Grand Alliance had in terms of caste.
Though Lok Sabha polls, almost a year and half back, saw the
triumph of BJP’s social alliance with Kushwaha and Paswan without Manjhi, it
was an aberration as the micro issues did not dominate the poll agenda then. At
that time, it was the performance of the UPA Government under scrutiny,
Narendra Modi versus Manmohan Singh as an issue and other macro issues which
dominated the agenda of the entire country, including Bihar. Voters have shown
an increasing tendency in recent years to differentiate between Lok Sabha
polls, Assembly polls; Panchayat and Municipal polls and parties too adopt
different campaigning methods and issues for each of them.
After the Lok Sabha elections, when the first experiment with
Grand Alliance was made, by-elections for 10 Assembly seats were held in Bihar.
That showed that despite rapid advances and aspirations of the youth,
mathematical consolidation of caste still was the most important factor. The
alliance won six of the 10 seats, setting the trend for the Assembly polls and
in a way indicating how well this caste combination of Lalu Prasad Yadav and
Nitish Kumar was working in the ground in conjunction with Congress which
hardly has any support base in any caste at this point of time.
It would also be wrong to assume that the Bihar results would have
national implications as some are pointing out. Neither Lalu Prasad’s RJD has
any preseince outside Bihar nor Nitish Kumar’s JDU. Of course, Congress made
substantial gains but that was only because it benefitted from the caste
alliance of the two parties and not because it has got strengthened in the
State. In fact, the unity of the three parties was not on issues (except
perhaps secularism) but their positioning in which they are natural rivals of
the BJP either in State or national politics. Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh
Yadav walked out of this alliance on the eve of Bihar polls indicating how
fragile such unity is and how difficult it is to form an alliance of diverse
regional parties at the national level with conflicting claims and ambitions of
each leader.
Also, the assumption that Nitish Kumar would emerge as a leader of
the “secular alliance” for the next Lok Sabha polls is far-fetched. Now he has
become a junior partner to Lalu Prasad in Bihar as he got fewer seats and first
he will have to grapple with the demands of RJD in the State to remain in power
and manage the contradictions. His entire energy would be concentrated in
managing the diversities of this alliance rather than on any national
objective. He will soon find that RJD is a tough customer to deal with as
compared to the BJP with whom he had an alliance in governance for over 8 years
in Bihar. There will be no single regional party leader in the country who
would ever accept the leadership of Nitish. Also, can Congress with pan India
footprint, ever agree to play second fiddle to Nitish at a time when its Vice
President Rahul Gandhi is raring to go and sensing an anti-incumbency against
BJP.
Not long ago, those perpetually in search of a national
alternative to Modi, zeroed in on Arvind Kejriwal after his spectacular victory
in Delhi. Now, can they come out and still assert the Delhi Chief Minister
could be an alternative. Let Nitish Kumar concentrate on the unfinished agenda
of Bihar, on development, creation of infrastructure, prevention of migration
and sprucing up the health and education sectors. People would be keenly
watching if he can come out of the stranglehold of Lalu Prasad, whose 15-year
tenure in the State was synonymous with what BJP called as Jungle Raj and where
the word development was looked with suspicion and ridicule.
For BJP, the lessons would be many and I am sure they will take a
stock of the situation. The party which prided itself for collective decision
making sometime back would be wondering if Congress style concentration of
power in one leader, however, charismatic he may be, is bearing fruits. After
Delhi elections, Bihar is clearly an electoral setback and no amount of verbal
camouflaging is going to help. Will the collective leadership concept of BJP
come back due to this defeat? Will there be a change of strategy? We have to
wait and watch. (November 9, 2015)
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