Nitish Kumar’s stock is low without the BJP’s heft. Can Lalu’s RJD still make a difference as leader of the Opp bloc?
The Bihar Assembly elections, right in the middle of the pandemic, will be the greatest logistical and public health challenge and if successful, could become a template of how a mass participatory process could be initiated without risking the virus. So yes, the new election code has new rules, including virtual campaigning, spread out schedule, longer voting hours, more polling booths, quarantined centres so that even the COVID-positive can vote and an unprecedented stock of preventive gear. The biggest challenge will be to ensure that the electoral process doesn’t become a super-spreader event. For the Election Commission, it is a big test, considering more State elections are to follow in rapid succession under the shadow of the pandemic. For Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar, it is time to convince his people that he is still good enough to deliver, his personal stock having taken a beating. For the Opposition and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, it is a chance to prove that his sons have it in them to continue his political movement robustly and more importantly, that he is still a leader who matters in reshaping discourse. Let’s take Nitish, who is under attack for his patchy response to the pandemic, poor flood management and mishandling of returnee migrants, a new constituency that is being courted by all parties. He may coast to victory in alliance with the BJP but the latter, while acknowledging him as the chief ministerial candidate, is still as ambitious about becoming the voters’ first choice and having its own man in the future. It hasn’t helped that Nitish has lost out in ratings to his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath in crisis management, the appreciation damagingly coming from his own people. The labourers, students and teachers are most peeved with him. Besides, unlike his initial years, he has stagnated and has nothing to show as a deliverer. The row over farm Bills may not have that much of an economic resonance in Bihar as the Government procurement here is low. Besides, it was the first State in India to have scrapped the Agriculture Produce Market Committee Act in 2006 and pave the way for the private sector to get involved in procurement of agricultural produce. But he cannot ignore the political consequences simply because Bihar’s farmers haven’t benefitted after the APMC was dismantled. The markets suffered a loss of fee revenue, there was no major private investment in the State’s agricultural sector and the smaller farmers continue to depend on trader cartels for buys as there is no guaranteed price mechanism. If anything, Bihar shows how taking down a regulatory framework hastily without necessary checks and balances can hurt the small and marginal farmers even more. The Opposition could use this for its campaign pitch. Politically though, Nitish has already neutralised the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), whose leader Chirag Paswan was attacking him almost every day, by inducting Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) founder and his protégé Jitan Ram Manjhi, into his fold. The Dalit vote is now consolidated under the NDA umbrella. According to the 2011 census, the Scheduled Castes are 15 per cent of Bihar’s population. The Mahadalits constitute nearly 16 per cent and though cultivated by Nitish, were beginning to swerve towards the RJD, which has the core traditional votes of the Muslims and Yadavs. Manjhi could return the Dalit swing in his favour. This would bring Nitish the numbers he needs to stay relevant.
Where does it leave Lalu then? The Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) announced that it will not contest and support all RJD candidates instead. Lalu still has the drawing power but he is not on the ground to smoothen wrinkles in the grand alliance of like-minded parties. And that could work to the RJD’s detriment. The problem with the Opposition bloc members is that they would only end up dividing the non-NDA vote if they do not form a strategic partnership. At the same time, they become aggressive about bargaining for seats in return for staying together and that reduces the seat quota for the RJD. A reduced number of seats for the RJD only helps the BJP to manipulate numbers in its favour and keep the former in check. The Lok Sabha election results are proof of this undercutting. The RJD could go it alone but that would be self-defeatist considering some of its allies are already questioning the leadership of Tejashwi Yadav in public. The youth are particularly not taken in by the dynastic entitlement of Lalu’s sons, who wage their own ego battles in the public sphere than inspire confidence. Tejashwi and Tej Pratap need to be on the same page. Or at least use their father’s wisdom. Tejashwi, so far, has appeared more interested in pursuing his individual ambition, grooming his yes men and running down senior leaders of the caste movement as deadwood. The arrogance cost the RJD its dependable associations with the Left and the Congress. Besides, with the BJP waiting to splinter unhappy parties, the Opposition bloc is caught in a cleft stick at the moment. The Left parties may look down and out but they are holding on to their traditional pockets. Perhaps if they had effectively used former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar as the change-making candidate, they could have become a key fringe player. The Congress is gasping for breath and though it won’t harm the RJD, another poor performance could see it losing more members to the BJP. The tide of discontent is there against Nitish but without Lalu at the helm, can the Opposition ride it?
