By Mohammad Sajjad for Twocircles.net
“Once the numbers of BJP MLAs increase in the Bihar Assembly, their numbers in the Rajya Sabha will also go up, and then, you all will lose your lands to be reduced to mere landless labourers, as the Union government of Modi will push through the Land Acquisition Bill”. This was one of the assertions of Nitish in his one of the recent public meetings. This created genuine alarm among the relevant sections.
The sky-rocketing prices, specifically of pulses and onion, have hit the people very hard. At the time of the ‘coronation of PM Narendra Modi in 2014, the price of Arhar was Rs 85 per kg, which has now exceeded Rs 200 per kg. The onion prices are equally high. This is particularly noticeable to the women who are said to be more tilted towards Nitish for the fact that during his tenure, he has done a lot towards uplifting and empowering them. Nitish’s promise of 35% reservation for women in the government jobs is adding to attract the Dalit and Backward caste women towards the Mahagathbandhan. Nitish also carries a credibility of doing his best towards fulfilling the poll promises he makes to his people. It is perhaps a history in making of sorts that “women-only groups” are campaigning on bicycles for Nitish in Digha (Patna) and elsewhere. The people of disadvantaged sections are not revealing their voting preferences to anyone. They are making ambiguous statements. ‘We are voting for Vikas-Development’. Now the question is: Whose development? Narendra Modi or Nitish Kumar? A clue is: if they are voting in conformity with their local hegemons, the upper castes, then why should be they so ambiguous? They could well be quite vocal, except the women of Backward Castes, most of whom are open about preferring Nitish.
No investment and industrialisation is visible as yet. The NDA’s promises of black money to be sent to the bank accounts of the individuals, the absolute failure of the schemes like the Jan Dhan Yojana, and reducing the allocations for Indira Awas Yojana have become greatest causes of people’s disenchantment against the NDA. One of the reasons for people deserting the Congress in 2014 was its involvements in corruption and arrogant defense by its ministers. The BJP is increasingly being identified with many kinds of corruptions including Lalitgate and Vyapam. The campaign visits of the BJP chief ministers like Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Vasundhra Raje Scindhia provide the opportunities to Lalu-Nitish to wield their sticks against the BJP on corruption issue. The common electorates are being persuaded to believe that their Prime Minister is undertaking foreign tours excessively at the cost of ignoring the concrete issues of immediate concerns of the common people.
The persecution of Dalits and Muslims in UP, Haryana and elsewhere, reportedly by the majoritarian bigots has created huge fear among the relevant sections as well as among the liberals. Many among these liberals had voted for the BJP in 2014 expecting that Narendra Modi has really moved on to shun the politics of persecution and usher in an era of development and employment-generation for which at least the educated youth are not only impatient but desperate also. The words and actions of the NDA bigwigs have hardly been able to reassure the people. They are just not able to allay their misgivings. Rather, the fear factor has further consolidated the relevant segments of electorates to ensure BJP’s defeat. These horrific incidents also exposed the Mulayam’s politics (of coming out of the Mahagathbandhan and erecting a ‘third front’), and the politics of Owaisi who were supposed to cut into certain votes of Mahagathbandhan. Owaisi started with a bang of sorts but later confined himself to contesting only six seats. For the rest, he made an appeal to ensure BJP’s defeat. The Left Front, which is also expected to cut into the Mahagathbandhan votes, may also not harm the latter as much. Their discourse on economic issues are educating the electorates about NDA’s ‘dismal failures’, besides putting up candidates on many seats of the castes the NDA candidates also belong to.
With the polls for two phases completed and results of 81 out of a total of 243 seats sealed, many kinds of reports and views about the prospects of the two leading alliances, namely, the one led by the BJP and the other led by the Janata Dal-United (JDU), have started coming out. Of these 81, the BJP claims to be winning 48-56 seats, whereas the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) claims to have outsmarted the NDA much significantly. In the rest of three phases to go for the polls, the incumbent Nitish claims to be winning a huge numbers of seats.
The Grand Alliance has many arguments to buttress their claims of having “clear edge” over the NDA. The BJP started its election campaign with huge hoardings in Patna and other major cities of Bihar, displaying none but the huge portraits of Narendra Modi and of Amit Shah. This made Nitish launch a campaign invoking “son of the soil” theory— “Bihari” versus the “Bahri” (external). This slogan aimed even at an important figure of Bihar BJP, Sushil Modi, as one of the probable Chief Ministerial candidates. Sushil Modi’s father is said to have come from elsewhere to have settled down in Bihar. This strategy of the BJP whereby it decided to contest polls more on the credibility and charisma of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and less on any other thing, is alleged by their political rivals as well as by many analysts, is proving to be counterproductive. It is said that the local BJP leaders (and their cliques within the BJP), aspiring to become chief minister have lost their interest in putting their best in the electoral campaigns and strategies. The views of the opponents of the BJP are getting much acceptability also because of the fact that the BJP has suddenly changed its strategy midway. It has now replaced huge portraits of the two BJP leaders from Gujarat with very small portraits of many leaders from Bihar. Much is being read into this changed tack of hoardings and banners.
The caste calculus
Talking across sections of the electorates one gets a view, mostly among rural ones belonging essentially to the Backward castes, one often comes across a remark, that this is an Assembly election to elect a government run by a chief minister, rather than to elect a Prime Minister to run the Union government. In the Lok Sabha polls of April-May 2014, the Nitish’s JDU could get only 16% of the votes. Now, the argument is: Nitish cannot be expected to getting less than that whose rating as incumbent as well as prospective chief minister is higher than anybody else. Those arguing about the winning prospects of the Nitish led alliance put forward certain arguments: The Muslims (18%), Yadavas (13%) and Kurmis (4%), are said to be the staunchest support base of the Mahagathbandhan forming 35% of the total electorates. Whereas, the NDA’s core support base is said to be the upper castes and banias forming a total of around 20%. Thus, the NDA is said to be lagging behind the Mahagathbandhan by about 15%. This deficit, they say, is difficult for the NDA to make up. If the Paswans (Dusadhs—the caste Ramvilas Paswan belongs to), and the Musahars (the caste Jitan Ram Manjhi belongs to) are said to be with the NDA, they argue that the Chamars and the Nonias among the Dalits are said to be with the Nitish-led alliance. So far as the Ati Pichhrha (EBCs) are concerned, both the alliances claim that the significant chunk of them are with them. Because of Shyam Rajak, an articulate leader of the JDU, it is claimed that his castemen—Dhobis (washer-men)—are with the Mahagathbandhan. This is also being argued that because of no respectable treatment to Upendra Kushwaha, as he has been given “insignificant” 22 seats by the NDA, his caste-men (Koeris) no longer remain as staunchly with the NDA as they were expected to. The sting operation against Awadhesh Kushwaha, the minister in Nitish cabinet, just on the eve of the second phase of the polls, is said to have antagonised the Koeris against the BJP.
Five phases of Polls, five faces for Chief Minister
More importantly, the statement of the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, that there will be a re-look on the reservation policy, created much alarm not only among the OBCs but also among the SCs, and STs. Some of the hitherto Ati Pichhrha castes have been given the status of the STs by the Nitish government, who are said to be now even more strongly with Nitish. The Prime Minister, despite insistence and expectations, didn’t clarify it. It was a shot in the arm for Lalu Yadav and he played upon it to the hilt, through his strong and effective communication of humour, of sarcasm, and rhetoric of social mutiny against the Brahminical hegemony and supremacy. This became convincing to the impatiently aspirant OBCs also because of the fact that the NDA gave its symbols to around 85-87 upper castes candidates, BJP symbols to 65, rest 20-22 from allies within NDA.
Nandkishor Yadav’s name may have split the Yadav votes between the BJP, RJD and JDU, but the fact that only 22 Yadavas have got BJP symbol, is giving comfort to Lalu in keeping his caste-men to his side. Moreover, a gossip that either, Radhamohan Singh (a Rajput, MP from Purvi Champaran, Motihari, and the Union Minister of Agriculture), or, Rajiv Pratap Rudy (another Rajput, and MP from Saran), could be one of the front-running candidates for the Chief Minister, further alienated the OBCs from the BJP. Subsequently, by the time the second phase of the polling on 16 October approached, many reports started coming out that another RSS man, Rajendra Singh, contesting from Dinara in Rohtas, again a Rajput, could be the chief ministerial candidate. Singh has been one of the BJP’s poll strategists of Jharkhand, and many workers of the Jharkhand BJP are seen in Dinara (Rohtas). Bihar is also known for long-standing rivalries between Bhumihars and Rajputs. It is therefore surmised that the Bhumihars may not be a happy lot seeing a Rajput becoming the chief minister of Bihar. There were then whispers that the hardliner Nawada MP, and Union Minister, Giriraj Singh, a Bhumihar, could be a probable chief minister. Another senior BJP leader from Bhumihar caste, Dr. C. P. Thakur, has already been advised to join the Margdarshak Mandali (a euphemism used for those leaders who are shunted out by Narendra Modi). Meanwhile, when Lalu’s attack started becoming sharper on the accusation of leaderless-ness in the Bihar BJP (lack of declared chief ministerial candidate), who, in his rustic and witty communication, though little sexist too, started shouting that the BJP’s poll campaign is a baraat (marriage party) without Dulaha (bride-groom). Allegedly, under this pressure, the BJP’s spokesperson, Syed Shahnawaz Husain, floated the name of Prem Kumar (contesting from Gaya), an Ati Pichhrha, as the chief ministerial candidate of the BJP.
This open-ended strategy and keeping people guessing about BJP’s prospective chief ministerial candidate has given rise to a speculation that this is BJP strategy to win votes from cross sections. It is being surmised that by the time the polls will be held in the Seemanchal region (eastern Bihar; with much higher concentration of Muslim electorates), the BJP might float the name of Syed Shahnawaz Husain for chief minister. This vagueness, rather than paying for the BJP is said to be alienating the OBC votes and that the Lalu campaign of return of “Forward Raj” is striking a chord with the OBCs. During the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, many OBC voters are said to have deserted Nitish also because they thought that Nitish’s campaign against Narendra Modi is adversely affecting the prospects of a Picchrha from getting India’s top post. Similar logic is said to be working against Narendra Modi now. Many OBC electorates argue that why should the Prime Minister speak so much against Lalu and Nitish, despite their caste-men having voted for Narendra Modi in 2014.
It is argued that the Nitish’s alliance with Lalu is working against Nitish in two ways: (a) Lalu’s image is anti-development, and therefore anti-middle class, hence Nitish won’t be able to carry out as much of development works as he could do in last ten years. (b) Yadavs being the exploitative neo-hegemons would repulse the Ati Pichhrhas against the Mahagathbandhan and in favour of the BJP. This could possibly have a ring of reality. However, Nitish thought of aligning with Lalu only after the upper caste MLAs of JDU deserted him in May 2014 after the victory of Narendra Modi in the 16th Lok Sabha. Nitish’s alliance with Lalu is bringing in Yadav votes as the upper caste votes had already made a shift towards the BJP. This was sort of an open announcement even in the kind of language and tone Nitish and Lalu spoke in the grand rally of August 30, 2015 at the Gandhi Maidan of Patna, and the social profile of the Mahagathbandhan candidates made this preference even more loud and clear. Secondly, the BJP’s insistence in poll campaigns on Nitish becoming a “puppet” of Lalu who will have a remote control, further brought cheers to the Yadavas and provided all the more reason to remain with the Mahagathbandhan as the provincial government’s patronage to them will be taken care of by Lalu. Whereas, the Ati Pichhrhas feel that so long as Nitish is there, they should not be scared of the Yadava hegemony. Another rationalization being popularised is: If Nitish could let secularism prevail and could contain anti-Muslim stances of the BJP despite being in alliance with them, then Nitish could well be trusted to carry out development works and good governance despite being in alliance with Lalu, whose latter tenure (2004-09) as Railways Minister was quite development and efficiency oriented; moreover, the Yadavs have now got enough of middle class hence cannot afford anti development politics any longer.
Nonetheless, all these speculations shall only be testified on 8th November when the counting of votes will put all speculations to rest.
(Mohammad Sajjad teaches Modern and Contemporary Indian History at Aligarh Muslim University and has written two books on Bihar: Muslim Politics in Bihar: Changing Contours (Routledge, 2014) and Contesting Colonialism and Separatism: Muslims of Muzaffarpur (Primus, 2014))