The recent events in Bihar and Maharashtra have started a kangaroo game in both states as have exposed the compulsions of national parties. Pictured above are Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan, with Sushil Modi cut off on the left, which is a metaphor for how the BJP has been feeling in Bihar. The recent slanging match between the regional leaders of Bihar and Maharashtra have resulted in a crisis of credibility in both states. The Oracle looks at how each of the major players in Bihar has maintained ship in the political storm.
1. The JD(U): To his credit, the Bihar Chief Minister has tried his best to keep his stand consistent. As in the recent crisis with alliance partner BJP, the Kosi barrage disaster, the Chief Minister has proved to be a deft political player in the furore over Raj Thackeray's actions. In the three years he has been in power, Nitish Kumar has consistently worked to maintain the separate identity of the JD(U) within the NDA and has easily shrugged off the "communal forces" tag. He has actually kept the BJP at arm's length from getting a real say in government. His excellent relations with the Dy. CM Sushil Modi have helped him pull off political moves that are manifestly to the BJP's disadvantage. During the Kosi Barrage disaster, when the Bihar government faced serious allegations of negligence, Nitish Kumar kept a straight face, warded off Lalu and Paswan's criticism and maintained that all he wanted to address was the issues of the people rather than the mudslinging of mean minded political enemies.
The approach has worked for him this time as well. The Chief Minister stoutly refused to share a dias with the Shiv Sena's Uddhav Thackeray at the NDA "Sankalp rally" in Sonepat (as did Uddhav); and asked his five Bihar MPs to quit. He did not pressure his ally BJP to follow suit and refused to give much reaction to Laloo Yadav's demand that the Chief Minister himself, along with his MLAs, quit the Bihar Assembly in order to put up a united face. Even when Laloo followed this up with a personal attack on the Chief Minister, calling him a "kursi chipku", Nitish Kumar calmly suggested that the Railway Minister should resign if he indeed felt so strongly about the situation in Mumbai. The RJD supremo refused to make his own MPs quit and did not quit himself. In the end, Laloo Yadav's attack was too personal, too hypocritical to make an impact and it fizzled out. Nitish Kumar wins again.
2. The BJP: The BJP is the second largest party in the state, a fact that almost everyone, and most often the BJP High Command, seems to forget. Granted that the BJP was in an unenviable situation on the Raj Thackeray issue, but there was no reason for the party to take itself out of the picture. There was no reason for the BJP not to make itself heard as a voice of sanity and national unity. Perhaps the BJP did not lose points by keeping mum, but it does not augur well for the organization.
The principal offender here is Dy. CM Sushil Modi. Time and again, he has faced charges from party workers in Bihar that he has allowed the JD(U) too much leeway. There was a time when the BJP was seen as an "aggressive ally", one that could wean away your support base by joining hands with you. Then the party adopted "coalition dharma" and everything changed. The BJP, which holds fort in large swathes of rural Vidharbha, Marathwada allows the Shiv Sena to walk all over it, even though the latter is essentially limited to Mumbai and Konkan. In Bihar, the BJP has chosen to be submissive once again. It was Arun Jaitley who had strung together the alliance of independents that led to the Bihar Governor Buta Singh dissolving the Bihar Assembly. Even Laloo Yadav charged, shortly after, that these independents were about to join the BJP (of course, independents are forbidden by anti-defection laws from joining political parties, but since when does the RJD care about laws?). When it came to the election however, the independents were subsumed largely into JD(U), further shrinking the BJP's space in the state. The man who smiles and waves as these things happen is Sushil Modi. There is little anyone can do to prevent Sushil Modi from doing to the Bihar BJP what Lalji Tandon did to the party in Uttar Pradesh during Mayawati's tenure.
In summary, the BJP has missed a major opportunity to flaunt its "India-first" credentials. The party had a chance to pressurize both JD(U) and Shiv Sena into a solution that would effectively have isolated Raj Thackeray, or better still, tossed him into the Congress-RJD court. Instead, the party isolated itself, mentioned that it was neutral towards regional interests and waited for the fires to die down.
3) The RJD : Following his rejection by the people, Bihar's mascot of backwardness has sought to reinvent himself as star Railway Minister. Laloo Yadav is a lucky man. After a 15 year term in Bihar, he has had a life extension as Cabinet Minister. But even the best of times come to an end. Even if the UPA returns somehow, Laloo Yadav will have nowhere near the strength he had in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
Laloo Yadav knows this and he is desperate. "Bihari pride" has been an issue he has always wanted to harness, but has never been able to quite turn into votes. Some years ago, Yadav showed up defiantly at the India Today Conclave where Bihar was to receive the dubious distinction of being the most backward state and delivered a scathing speech wherein he blamed the backwardness of Bihar not on himself but on the rest of the country! He has even tried to play up a chance remark of Atalji : "Main Atal hoon magar Bihari nahin hoon". However, the ploy has never really worked for him, perhaps because people tend to take pride only in development and not in backwardness.
On the Raj Thackeray issue, Laloo has been upstaged by Nitish. The Bihar Chief Minister has stayed consistent and pulled out his MPs to build up pressure on the Centre. The onus is now on Laloo to make sure that the Congress and the NCP, his friends in the UPA who run the show in Maharashtra act against Raj Thackeray and indeed, in the interests of the country.
The students who attacked railway property in Barh were venting their ire against the Railway Minister who couldn't protect the interests of Biharis. It does not augur well for the RJD. Laloo Yadav tried to be too dramatic and failed.
4. The LJP: Ram Vilas Paswan has been looking for a perch in politics ever since he was rejected by all kinds of people in Bihar. His demand for a Muslim CM in the last election was far too obviously opportunistic to win him many votes. With Laloo Yadav forced to shift base to Delhi from Patna, there was little left for Paswan to do. It would be far too embarrassing to return to the NDA fold and sour relations with Laloo do not help. Therefore, Paswan's objective here is to mend fences with Laloo and, by sharing the spotlight with JD(U), RJD and BJP, give the impression that his party is on an equal footing with the bigger three. With Mayawati determined to seize a chunk of his core voters in the next election, there is little else for Paswan to do.
Even though Paswan had embarked on a strident "oust Laloo" campaign in 2005, he will now rely on the Congress to make sure he has a share in the UPA camp in Bihar in 2009. Fortunately, the UPA is on very slippery ground in Bihar and needs every last vote, so he will probably be offered some kind of arrangement. For now, the LJP wants to hang around Laloo Yadav, agreeing with him as much as possible.
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