Nitish sounds optimistic as Bihar is no Uttar Pradesh

Immediately after becoming the chief minister of Bihar once again on August 10, Nitish Kumar sounded quite optimistic about the performance of the opposition in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Though it is not easy to make predictions about the rest of India, it can be said with some amount of certainty that in Bihar the coming parliamentary poll would not be a cakewalk for the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The news that three of the five MPs of the Lok Janshakti Party are likely to walk away from the National Democratic Alliance has further aggravated the problem for the saffron party. Citing the example of the recent Uttar Pradesh election in which the Bharatiya Janata Party did very well, some political pundits are jumping to the conclusion that the coming together of the non-BJP parties would not affect the poll prospect of NDA much in Bihar. They are of the view that the non-Yadav backwards will largely remain behind the BJP in Bihar as in UP.

But the 2024 parliamentary election would be the first one in which the much bigger Grand alliance would be contesting together. The Rashtriya Janata Dal, Janata Dal (United) and Congress had contested 2015 Assembly election jointly and walked away with 178 out of 243 seats.

This was the result notwithstanding the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity was at its peak. He addressed more than 30 rallies across Bihar on the eve of that Assembly election. The BJP had contested that election in alliance with late Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party, Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samata Party and former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha. The BJP alone won 53 seats, while its three other partners just five.

It needs to be understood that Paswan and Kushwaha were then Union ministers in the Modi cabinet. Paswan and Manjhi were the leaders of two Dalit parties while Kushwaha is a Koeri. The BJP had contested the Lok Sabha poll of 2014 in alliance with the LJP and RLSP. The saffron party won 22 seats, while LJP six and RLSP three. In contrast, Nitish’s JD(U) could win only two while RJD four seats.

So, while in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll the BJP-led combination won over 75 per cent of seats, in the Assembly election held just over a year later, the equation totally changed just because the RJD, JD(U) and Congress joined forces. In 2019 parliamentary poll the BJP in alliance with the JD(U) and LJP swept the state with 39 out of 40 seats. Congress won one while RJD drew blank.

So, it can be said with a fair amount of surety that the combination in which Nitish Kumar goes performs very well. Though it is also a fact that when he contests alone, he fails to make any big impact on the poll prospect of his party, the Janata Dal (United).

Contrary to this the RJD still had the strength to emerge as the largest party both in 2015 and 2020 Assembly elections. It lost the 2020 assembly poll by a whisker largely because of the poor performance of the alliance partner, the Congress, which could win only 19 out of 70 seats. RJD on its own won 75 seats when it fielded candidates in 144 constituencies.

In 2015 Assembly poll too, the performance of the RJD was much better. Both RJD and JD(U) contested 101 seats while Congress 41 in the House of 243. The RJD won 80 while JD(U) 71 and Congress 27. What is surprising is that the JD(U) bagged fewer seats notwithstanding the fact that Nitish Kumar was declared the chief ministerial face before the poll.

The new Grand alliance is somewhat different than the last one as it includes Hindustani Awam Morcha and Left Parties. The two won four and 16 seats respectively. A dozen of them were bagged by the CPI ML (Liberation) alone, which has considerable influence in some pockets.

Another problem with the BJP is that now RLSP’s Upendra Kushwaha has merged his party with Nitish’s Janata Dal (United). On the other hand, the LJP is now without veteran Dalit figure, Ram Vilas Paswan. Not only that the LJP is a divided house with not a single MLA in Bihar. It won only one and even the lone winner crossed over to Janata Dal (United).

Just on the eve of the July 7, 2021 cabinet reshuffle by PM Narendra Modi the LJP got split with five out of six-party MPs walking away under the leadership of Pashupati Kumar Paras. The latter is the younger brother of late Ram Vilas and uncle of the present party leader Chirag Paswan, who has been left alone.

With LJP in a disarray and Manjhi in the Grand Alliance camp, it would be difficult for the NDA in Bihar to get so many Dalit votes. It has been observed that RJD, as well as CPI-ML, also have a substantial hold on Dalits. What is often overlooked by many of our experts is that even in 2015 Assembly election the CPI-ML bagged three seats and that too when it contested not as a Grand Alliance partner. On the other hand, the LJP could get just two seats though it fought as a partner of the BJP.

Paras, who has become a Union minister, is no match to his elder brother, while Chirag is under fire from all sides. Reports suggest that three of the five LJP MPs are now planning to cross over to the Grand Alliance camp.

It should not be forgotten that Nitish, even when the JD(U) contested alone in 2014 Lok Sabha election, managed to get 15 per cent votes. This is because he enjoys considerable support from non-Yadav backwards, Dalits and upper castes.

So unlike in Uttar Pradesh, where there is no towering non-Yadav OBC leader like Nitish in the opposition rank in Bihar, the situation would be entirely different now. In UP Akhilesh Singh of Samajwadi Party was left alone. There is no Yogi-type face in the Bihar BJP. Besides, Yogi is an upper caste figure in the state where their population is much larger than Bihar.

-INDIA NEWS STREAM