Patna: With Bihar elections around the corners, all the political parties are gearing up to streamline their social engineering to win the assembly polls. Caste dynamics and reservation has been the bedrock of the Bihar elections. However, in 2015, JD(U) supremo broke the alliance with RJD to challenge Lalu Prasad's social engineering and to portray his 'good governance'. More than half of Bihar's constituencies have sizable SC/ST populations that will play a decisive role in the outcome of the polls on all 40 Lok Sabha seats.
While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is following the social engineering ideology of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya where even the person in the last line of society also gets the benefits, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has changed its social engineering narrative after the BJP registered a victory in the 2014 and 2019 Parliamentary elections.
Lalu used social engineering as a tool and remained in power from 1990 to 2005. Afterwards, from 1990 to 1995 RJD used Mandal commission as the base Lalu Yadav brought the MY equation and strengthened his vote bank and retained power. At the same time, in the third term, Lalu Yadav maintained his vote bank through forward-backwards reservation.
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Nitish's government in the name of good governance
However, by 2005, the people of Bihar had started feeling that the state was lagging behind in the development. In such a situation, the people of Bihar approved the name of Nitish Kumar and the NDA government was formed. Since then, CM Nitish Kumar has been taking power in the state in the name of good governance.
A round of allegations and counter-allegations started in the election season. With the assembly elections 2020 coming close once again, a round of accusations between political parties has started. BJP is attacking RJD saying that RJD wants to divide the society and climb the stairs of power, but the people of Bihar have understood everything. Party spokesperson Nikhil Anand said that Lalu Yadav did politics by giving vent to issues like casteism, forward-backwards and reservation, but now the public is not going to be influenced by his party.
RJD's counter attack
Replying to the BJP's allegations, RJD retaliated by giving a sharp response. RJD spokesperson Ramanuj Prasad said that the people of BJP does politics to divide the country and society. Our party cares for the downtrodden and the underprivileged and we talk about their rights. Regarding the politics of Bihar, political analyst Dr. Sanjay Kumar said that Lalu Yadav had very clearly set the agenda. Lalu sometimes did politics by giving wind to the mandal or sometimes to the MY equation. But the situation has changed, people have chosen Nitish Kumar in the name of development.
At the same time, once again under new circumstances, Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav has taken a different route from his father's stand. Along with development, Tejashwi Yadav is engaged in politics by talking to the youth. Tejashwi Yadav probably feels that Nitish Kumar can be defeated with his own weapon.
