A politician has nine lives. Astral movements have brought together the stars over Bihar in such a constellation that Lalu Yadav is in the ascendant and chief minister Nitish Kumar is staring at a black hole.
The Congress, Lalu's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) have decided to form a secular front in Bihar to consolidate votes of all those who are unlikely to vote for the Bhartiya Janata Party – Muslims, Yadavs, Dalits. The formidable alliance makes perfect electoral sense, but it abruptly makes Nitish of the Janata Dal (United) the odd man out. The well-regarded chief minister is suddenly a third force.
Life has come full circle for Lalu, who was dumped by the Congress after he won only four of 40 Lok Sabha seats in 2009. For all his loyalty to UPA-1 and his famed performance as Manmohan Singh's first railway minister, Lalu was not given even a face-saving position in UPA-2. More recently, when he was convicted in the fodder scam that has come to be synonymous with him, he had to give up his Lok Sabha seat. The Supreme Court judgement had ruled that convicted lawmakers have to resign from elected office, even if their cases are in appeal before a higher court. In September, the UPA government was about to enact an ordinance to save Lalu's Saran seat, when Rahul Gandhi barged into a press conference and said the manoeuver was “complete nonsense”, demanding that it should be “torn and thrown away”. That was just four months ago.
Even as Rahul Gandhi's interview to Arnab Goswami was being telecast on Monday, in which he defended the alliance with Lalu saying that the Congress was tying up with “an idea, not an individual” and that the call had been taken by party seniors anyway, the young man was actually meeting Lalu in person.
So much for allying with “an idea, not an individual” that the RJD turned down the Congress pre-condition for Lalu to step down as party president. So much for Rahul Gandhi's "new politics". This alliance also represents a departure from Gandhi's earlier position that the Congress should not enter pre-poll alliances and instead contest all seats if it had to rebuild the party. Gandhi's efforts to rebuild the party have come to a naught, and it was again looking at a complete rout in Bihar. What's more important for Congress right now is to stop the Modi juggernaut in its tracks, and that needs propping up regional, secular players. Expect more of this.
But could the Congress have allied with Nitish instead, and appeared less hypocritical? The numbers may not support the idea. Bihar's 21.5 per cent upper caste voters are spearheading the Modi wave; they parted ways from Nitish as soon as he parted ways with the BJP. The 16 per cent Dalits are a divided lot, but a good chunk of them, especially the Dusadhs, vote for Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP. The LJP can win seats only in alliance with other parties as its vote base is spread thin across the state. While the LJP has been a partner of the RJD, it was equally willing to go with Nitish's JD (U). Lalu brings with him the core vote base of 11 per cent Yadavs, whose 4 per cent points lead over Nitish's 7 per cent Kurmis and Koeris give him an edge.
The Congress brings no core vote base to any alliance in Bihar. What it brings is the signal of a secular consolidation, a signal important for the 17 per cent Muslim voters of Bihar. Since some of the OBC communities might also go to the BJP, it is the 17 per cent Muslims who have a casting vote for a secular alliance. In other words, the electoral outcome would still have been similar if the Congress had allied with Nitish instead of Lalu.
Nitish's alliance with the BJP was an intricate one – the BJP brought upper caste voters, and Nitish had sliced off Muslim voters on caste lines. With a resounding rebuff to Narendra Modi, he was the right man to occupy the secular messiah space once monopolised by Lalu. Some feared that Nitish had only rejected Modi and not the BJP, and could switch sides to the NDA after the elections, should it decide to have someone other than Modi as prime minister. Nitish has even praised LK Advani. But such fears are unfounded because Nitish made it clear that he was snapping ties with the BJP and there was no looking back. The bridge had been burnt.
What seems to have tilted the Congress towards Lalu is greed: given that Nitish was in a much better bargaining position, the Congress would get more seats for itself out of Lalu.
Nitish's bitterness is showing when he says the Congress and the RJD, two parties best known for corruption, are a natural allies. The biggest "vote cutter" in Bihar this election season will be Nitish the loser. He may be down and out, but he is probably taking inspiration from Lalu – a politician who, the rest of us forget, has nine lives.
The Congress, Lalu's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) have decided to form a secular front in Bihar to consolidate votes of all those who are unlikely to vote for the Bhartiya Janata Party – Muslims, Yadavs, Dalits. The formidable alliance makes perfect electoral sense, but it abruptly makes Nitish of the Janata Dal (United) the odd man out. The well-regarded chief minister is suddenly a third force.
Life has come full circle for Lalu, who was dumped by the Congress after he won only four of 40 Lok Sabha seats in 2009. For all his loyalty to UPA-1 and his famed performance as Manmohan Singh's first railway minister, Lalu was not given even a face-saving position in UPA-2. More recently, when he was convicted in the fodder scam that has come to be synonymous with him, he had to give up his Lok Sabha seat. The Supreme Court judgement had ruled that convicted lawmakers have to resign from elected office, even if their cases are in appeal before a higher court. In September, the UPA government was about to enact an ordinance to save Lalu's Saran seat, when Rahul Gandhi barged into a press conference and said the manoeuver was “complete nonsense”, demanding that it should be “torn and thrown away”. That was just four months ago.
Even as Rahul Gandhi's interview to Arnab Goswami was being telecast on Monday, in which he defended the alliance with Lalu saying that the Congress was tying up with “an idea, not an individual” and that the call had been taken by party seniors anyway, the young man was actually meeting Lalu in person.
So much for allying with “an idea, not an individual” that the RJD turned down the Congress pre-condition for Lalu to step down as party president. So much for Rahul Gandhi's "new politics". This alliance also represents a departure from Gandhi's earlier position that the Congress should not enter pre-poll alliances and instead contest all seats if it had to rebuild the party. Gandhi's efforts to rebuild the party have come to a naught, and it was again looking at a complete rout in Bihar. What's more important for Congress right now is to stop the Modi juggernaut in its tracks, and that needs propping up regional, secular players. Expect more of this.
But could the Congress have allied with Nitish instead, and appeared less hypocritical? The numbers may not support the idea. Bihar's 21.5 per cent upper caste voters are spearheading the Modi wave; they parted ways from Nitish as soon as he parted ways with the BJP. The 16 per cent Dalits are a divided lot, but a good chunk of them, especially the Dusadhs, vote for Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP. The LJP can win seats only in alliance with other parties as its vote base is spread thin across the state. While the LJP has been a partner of the RJD, it was equally willing to go with Nitish's JD (U). Lalu brings with him the core vote base of 11 per cent Yadavs, whose 4 per cent points lead over Nitish's 7 per cent Kurmis and Koeris give him an edge.
The Congress brings no core vote base to any alliance in Bihar. What it brings is the signal of a secular consolidation, a signal important for the 17 per cent Muslim voters of Bihar. Since some of the OBC communities might also go to the BJP, it is the 17 per cent Muslims who have a casting vote for a secular alliance. In other words, the electoral outcome would still have been similar if the Congress had allied with Nitish instead of Lalu.
Nitish's alliance with the BJP was an intricate one – the BJP brought upper caste voters, and Nitish had sliced off Muslim voters on caste lines. With a resounding rebuff to Narendra Modi, he was the right man to occupy the secular messiah space once monopolised by Lalu. Some feared that Nitish had only rejected Modi and not the BJP, and could switch sides to the NDA after the elections, should it decide to have someone other than Modi as prime minister. Nitish has even praised LK Advani. But such fears are unfounded because Nitish made it clear that he was snapping ties with the BJP and there was no looking back. The bridge had been burnt.
What seems to have tilted the Congress towards Lalu is greed: given that Nitish was in a much better bargaining position, the Congress would get more seats for itself out of Lalu.
Nitish's bitterness is showing when he says the Congress and the RJD, two parties best known for corruption, are a natural allies. The biggest "vote cutter" in Bihar this election season will be Nitish the loser. He may be down and out, but he is probably taking inspiration from Lalu – a politician who, the rest of us forget, has nine lives.
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