Chief Minister Nitish Kumar releasing Bihar Development Report 2010 in Patna on September 2. The ruling combine's thrust is on the development successes of the five years of its rule.
(Photo Ranjit Kumar)PERCEPTIONS may vary on the balance of power in Bihar's political arena and the outcome of the impending elections to the Assembly, but observers as well as practitioners of different brands of politics agree on one thing: that elections, scheduled to be held in six phases in October-November, could well be the most significant in the history of Bihar in the past two decades. They have arrived at this conclusion after studying the situation from their own view points.
According to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the Janata Dal (United) led by him, Bihar has witnessed a social, political and economic paradigm shift in the last five years under the party's rule. Nitish Kumar contends that this shift will be reflected in new political parameters with development as the key factor, pushing aside considerations based on caste and community that have for decades dominated the State's electoral politics.The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the JD(U)'s coalition partner, largely shares this perception, though some sections in the party are sceptical.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) led by Lalu Prasad and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) led by Ramvilas Paswan, which constitute the main opposition, dismiss the “paradigm shift” premise as baseless and assert that these elections will, as always, be dominated by caste and community considerations.
The results of the elections, to be held on October 21, 24, 28 and on November 1, 9, 20, will be announced on November 24.
Caste divisions, of course, have traditionally dominated elections in Bihar. Elections have been fought and won on the basis of careful manoeuvreing of caste divides coupled with some deft social engineering. This time, however, a significant number of political activists and observers agree with the Chief Minister's assessment. Governance under the coalition government in the past five years, they say, has changed society and politics in the State, allowing the urge for “development” to sideline caste considerations.
At a seminar on Bihar held in New Delhi in August, Nitish Kumar said: “In the past five years, the whole political grammar of Bihar has changed. The beginnings of the same were seen even in the 2005 polls when people decidedly voted for a change. Over the past five years, more and more sections of society have joined that process on account of the policies and governance we had adopted and the net result has been the concretisation of the change in political grammar.” He added that despite this obvious change, his principal adversaries, Lalu Prasad and Paswan, were clinging to the “old syllabus” based on caste permutations and combinations. “They will soon be brought to realisation with a thud,” he said.
A large number of people in and outside the State endorse his view. They believe that development has been brought firmly on the State's radar and that nobody would want to upset that. However, the other side sees the Chief Minister's claims as just so much rhetoric – bhashaan-baaji. For Lalu Prasad and Paswan, the “development” story is a creation of a pliant media rather than a realistic assessment of the situation on the ground.
As for the Congress, which heads the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) at the Centre, it is ready to admit that the State has witnessed better development under Nitish Kumar than under earlier governments in the last 15 years. But it asserts that this was made possible by the substantial funds that the Centre made available to his government.
Other factors
Several other significant issues are expected to come into play in the run-up to and elections and during the polling process. One of these is the so-called political magic of Rahul Gandhi and its impact on the Congress' prospects. Rahul Gandhi was credited with being the man behind the party's reasonably good performance in Uttar Pradesh in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Was that a flash in the pan? Or does the scion of the Congress' first family have a real hold on the people in the Hindi heartland? A poor performance by the party in the Bihar elections will put question marks on his ability to deliver at the national level.
Clearly, the stakes are high for all the players. The Left parties – the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) – form a fourth factor in the equation and have pockets of limited influence in different parts of the State.
Meanwhile, the principal players are pursuing their respective agendas in the early stages of electioneering, albeit with some clever nuancing. While Nitish Kumar swears by the new development-oriented agenda, he has also roped in leaders with overt caste and community appeal, such as former RJD leaders Taslimuddin, a former Union Minister, and Dalit leader Ramai Ram. Lalu Prasad seems to have compromised on his “backward caste” politics and inducted former JD(U) leader Prabhunath Singh, belonging to the upper-caste Rajput community. Both Lalu Prasad and Paswan have also been forced to introduce “development” in their discourse.
The JD(U)-BJP combine's campaign thrust is the perceptible changes in the State, especially improvement in the law and order situation, facilitating free movement by people across the State. The number of cases of kidnapping, which had acquired the status of an industry during the 15 years of RJD rule, has gone down considerably. The sprucing up of the infrastructure, including road connectivity, and the strengthening of the health care and educational systems are also highlighted. There have been some path-breaking pieces of legislation, including ones aimed at empowering women, the Maha Dalits and the Most Backward Communities (MBCs) through reservation in local bodies. The Chief Minister's personal integrity is a significant part of this campaign and he is projected as a visionary capable of steering Bihar into a prosperous future.
The ruling coalition's campaign, however, is defensive and almost silent on the once-much-touted land reforms that the government later backed out of. The issue had aggrieved large sections of the upper castes and had even led to the departure of influential leaders such as Prabhunath Singh and Lallan Singh from the JD(U) fold. Coalition leaders, including Nitish Kumar, tend to circumvent the topic and have been trying to assuage upper-caste sentiments through gestures such as friendly visits to dominant upper-caste figures, including the mother of Anand Mohan Singh, a prominent upper-caste leader of the State.
Meanwhile, the way in which the ruling coalition's campaign has been woven around the Chief Minister's personality has drawn criticism from its opponents and provoked dissent within the combine. Lallan Singh, formerly a trusted lieutenant of Nitish Kumar, parted ways with him a few months ago and has since moved closer to the Congress. He trenchantly argues that over the past five years Bihar witnessed the development of a blatant and shameless personality cult.
Secularism or Hindutva?
The ruling combine has been plaugued, over the past five years, by the contrasting ideological moorings of the two partners. Nitish Kumar has taken great pains to affirm his secular credentials, but the divide has sometimes caused functional problems for the coalition. Last June, when Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP leader Narendra Modi used the meeting of the National Executive of his party in Patna to promote his credentials as a national leader, an offended Nitish Kumar cancelled a dinner that he had meant to hold for BJP leaders. This caused heartburning among the BJP rank and file and some BJP Ministers came out with open criticism of the Chief Minister.
These differences have reportedly tapered off, but the fundamental ideological conflict between the two partners in the name of secularism and Hindutva is bound to come up in the long electoral process. The judgment of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute will be delivered on September 24. Nitish Kumar's secular credentials and his Muslim support base will presumably dictate his stance. How the two sides resolve their differences on the issue remains to be seen.
Opposition dynamics
The opposition parties, meanwhile, have their own political dynamics. The RJD has been generous to the LJP by according it 75 seats. The combine's basic calculation is caste-oriented. It hopes to ride on the RJD's Yadav votes, the LJP's Dussadh Dalit vote base, the new-found attraction of a section of upper-caste voters for the combine, and the depleting Muslim support base of both the parties. The combine's main challenge is a major credibility-deficit. The Congress, on its part, is trying to woo a section of the upper-caste vote base of the BJP and also Muslims.
The alliance between the RJD and the LJP, which developed after the last elections, may actually take away from the advantage that the JD(U)-BJP had in the last elections. In 2005, voters sent a clear message with a ‘yes' in favour of the JD(U)-BJP combine, which bagged 143 seats in the 243-member Assembly. The JD(U) got 88 seats while the BJP got 55. The RJD was relegated to the third spot, its strength reduced to 54. The LJP could win only 10 seats, while the Congress had to rest content with a mere nine.
This result was made possible through the coming together of the JD(U) vote base in the Other Backward Class (OBC) Kurmi community (to which Nitish Kumar belongs), the BJP's upper-caste base and a section of the Muslim minority votes that were attracted to Nitish Kumar's personality. Over the past five years, Nitish Kumar has added large segments of the MBCs to his vote base and has widened his Muslim support base, though a section of the upper castes have left the JD(U)-BJP combine on account of the government's proposed land reforms.
Nitish Kumar hopes to repeat the 2005 result in spite of the RJD-LJP alliance. His contention is that this election will not be about caste-based arithmetic but about the hopes and aspirations of the people.
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