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| Lessons from Bihar election | | |
Er. Prabhat Kishore
In Bihar, the country has witnessed the first general election during worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Except JDU, no one was in favour of timely election. But ultimately it held up successfully and government has been formed under the leadership of Nitish Kumar.
Bihar election has taught the people, parties and political pandits numerous lessons. It has once again proved that democracy in India is deeply rooted and whatever be the antithetical situation, people participation would be as usual. It has also been demonstrated that country’s institutions and officials have capability & capacity to tackle the reverse scenario, in which many developed countries have lagged behind. The latest social media techniques for campaigning, used first time in world’s history, would also pave the way for future elections negating misuse of public money & time. Opposition Parties too must learn that fanatic crowd taking selfie & vociferating slogans for opposition Party and throwing onions & disturbing meetings of ruling Party are not the sign of change & anti-incumbency.
The TRP-thirsty electronic medias as well as some print media’s pre-poll biasness for a particular political heavyweight through apocryphal exit polls have been brushed under the carpet by the conscious silent voters. People have proved their dignity and taught the helmsmen of yellow journalism that they could not be influenced by hue & cry of spurious surveys and analysis. Nearly all medias have spread propaganda of Nitish’s anti-incumbency and termed Modi as his survival, but the ground reality is just reverse. People, particularly women, have not benefitted much from central schemes, but they have direct links with various State welfare schemes and reservations in local bodies & jobs. PM & other BJP stalwarts’ time & again firmness for Nitish’s CM candidature emancipated BJP and not JDU.
. RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav has tactfully neglected parties like HAM, RLSP & VIP and strengthen Mahagathbandhan (MG) by joining hands with extremist Communists groups, who have small but militant followers. The mandate has established Tejaswi in Bihar politics and buried those partners who had questioned his leadership.
A Party having parted ways with an alliance before or after election is a natural phenomenon in Indian politics. But the politics of betrayal amid election by a national party to its pre-poll ally party questions the values & belief in normal life; although it is not new in the Indian history. On paper, there was direct fight between Nitish led NDA and Tejaswi-led MG. But the ground reality, strategy, and campaigning were something else. The whole election has been transformed into “Nitish vs All”.
In NDA, JDU have been big brother since 2000, when Jharkhand was carved out from Bihar and Nitish was its supreme leader. BJP being a national party, have a natural aspiration of becoming big brother as in Maharashtra, particularly when Modi’s charisma is on its full swing. But Nitish is its main hindrance, as he have solid Lav-Kush (Kurmi-Koiri), Extremely Backward Castes, Mahadalits and women vote bank. BJP’s core upper caste voters’ population having only 13-14% could not compete with Nitish’s social engineering. To cut Nitish’s wing BJP had prepared full proof strategy before election. Since nearly two years, a bunch of BJP leaders including some central ministers were openly engaged in “Nitish Hatao BJP Laao” campaign.
As per strategy, LJP’s Chirag Paswan started criticizing Nitish with no reasons and parted away from NDA in Bihar. LJP has all worthy praise for Nitish, when Ram Vilas’s elder brother have been inducted as a minister in Bihar government and nominated to Vidhan Parishad by Nitish through Governor quota in 2017. In Chirag’s word, Nitish was a messiah when he was contesting Lok Sabha election 2019. In 2020 election, LJP announced not to contest on BJP’s seats, but to fight on all JDU seats only to “finish Nitish”. The game-plan immediately exposed when BJP’s leaders, whose seats have come under JDU share, joined LJP, converting it as “B” team of BJP. Party’s local functionaries as well as core upper caste voters not only aggressively worked & voted for LJP, but in some constituencies even for MG with solo motto to dethrone Nitish. BJP got 100% votes of JDU’s core voters on the name of CM face as Nitish, but in turn JDU remain bereft of BJP’s core votes, resulting in heavy damage to JDU and massive gain for itself.
The full proof betrayal mission of BJP completed successfully, when JDU drops from 71 to 43 and BJP rises from 59 to 74. JDU lose more than 30 seats due to LJP or frankly speaking BJP’s B-team, where JDU candidates are mourning on the tune of “Hamein to apno ne loota, Gairon men kahan dam tha; Hamari Kashti wahan doobi, Jahan paani Bahut kam tha”. Chirag Paswan was no issue for public as being proclaimed; it was his shoulder but the gun was of someone else.
The Web portal of EC reveals the votes polled & vote percentage to various parties in Bihar Vidhan Sabha election 2020 as :– JDU- 6484414 (15.39%), BJP- 8201408 (19.46%), RJD- 9736242 (23.11%), Congress- 3995003 (9.48%), CPI-349489 (0.83%), CPM-274155 (0.65%), LJP-2383457 (5.66%), BSP-628944 (1.49%), AIMIM-523279 (1.24%), RLSP-744221 (1.77%). LJP’s mass-base is much less than RLSP of Upendra Kushwaha and the vote polled clearly reflects that nearly 4% votes out of 5.66% for LJP & 2-3% of MG too, would have been in favour of JDU in case of BJP’s heartily support.
BJP has completed first step of its long-term game-plan successfully. Now they have proceeded towards second step for cutting EBC & women core voters of JDU, by nominating two deputy CMs from said category and sidelining Sushil Modi, ex-Deputy CM & shadow of Nitish. In JDU too, there are BJP’s background & mentality leaders, who have established domination on its founder workers from core voters.
The wound by an enemy is hurtful, but betrayal of an ally or associate in the middle of battlefield is thousand times more detrimental. No doubt, BJP’s “Muh mein Ram Bagal mein Chhuri” tactic has a lesson for Nitish. The political career of Nitish is full of struggle and he know how to tackle the bad days; as he has started his political journey with two consecutive defeats and then with sharp rise. It is true fact that “Kath ki handi ek hi bar chadhati hai, baar baar nahi”, so BJP could not breach him time & again. The election has proved that JDU’s core voter are still firmly rallied behind Nitish and the result is not so much worrisome as are being analyzed and propagated. |
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