Patna: The battleground for Bihar elections has heated up and 94 assembly constituencies are going for polls in the second phase. The parties are now fighting to ensure their majority so that they can form the government. The results will be declared on November 10. The parties are accordingly playing their cards. The claims and counterclaims, allegations and counter-allegations, everything has reached its peak. Now the state is gearing up for the third phase of polling. The people of Bihar are being reminded about the kind of development which has taken place in the state in the past 15 years, while the opposition parties are asking for the report card of development.
Every party is playing its card around the plank of development whether in favour of it or against it. There are multiple definitions of development which are doing rounds in Bihar politics today. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has already said that he would take the oath after the election results are out on November 10, which has set the tongue wagging in the State’s political corridors. Chief Minister Kumar has said the BJP has already clarified that he would be the chief minister if the NDA gets a majority in Bihar polls. Though Kumar has referred to his party JDU’s deal with the BJP, questions are being asked as to what prompted him to give such a statement in the midst of the poll.
BJP’S BIHAR POLL PACT
Before 1989, all political parties in Bihar used to fight against Congress. The Janata Dal government formed under the leadership of Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav gave a shock to the Congress in the 1990 assembly polls. It is said that there was the interference of the RSS in the politics of Bihar, which had helped to form the non-Congress government. The BJP leaders like Lalmuni Chaubey and others had even joined hands with the Janata Dal at that point of time. At that time, there was an alliance between the BJP and the JD in Bihar. There was a change in the State’s political dynamics after the implementation of the Mandal Commission report in 1990.
Lalu Prasad Yadav grabbed the ground and gave the dimension of social justice to Bihar’s caste politics. The BJP took out the ‘Rath Yatra’ and added the saffron colour to the state politics. The BJP started gaining ground in the state when a new political narrative was being built in the State around the ‘Jungle Raj’. The BJP got a big boost when the Samata Party along with leaders such as George Fernandes and Sharad Yadav entered into an agreement with the BJP in Bihar. When things further changed in Bihar politics, the BJP started looking towards Nitish Kumar and threw its weight behind him as part of its political agreement.
DEAL OF MANDATE AND MAJORITY IN 2005 AND 2010
In February 2005, polls could not give enough seats to the RJD to continue in power with usual strength. It lasted only for five months. The RJD government fell and Bihar went to polls again in October 2005. Nitish Kumar, who was struggling hard to drive home the point of ‘Jungle Raj,’ was building a new political narrative in the State by promising good governance. In the subsequent poll, the people of Bihar signed an agreement in the name of Nitish’s development promise and handed over the rein to Kumar. In the 2010 Vidhan Sabha elections, there was strong agreement between Nitish Kumar and the BJP in the name of development. The public opinion was clearly in favour of Kumar’s development flavour. Nitish’s JDU won 115 seats, just seven short of the majority. The short of seven seats led to a kind of conflict in the politics of agreement and the arrangement did not last to the end.
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CONFRONTATION IN 2013, BREAK-UP IN 2014
The politics of the deal turned into a major political confrontation between the BJP and the JDU in 2013. The distance between the allies widened. The BJP held its national executive meeting at Rajgir in 2013. The slogan of ‘NaMo, NaMo’ which was first raised at Rajgir, reached Bihar Vidhan Sabha. Giriraj Singh and Ashwani Chaubey, now Union Ministers, were among those leaders who batted for charting an independent political course in the state. The duo were ministers when Chief Minister Nitish Kumar led the NDA government in the State. The politics was taking a swift turn in Bihar. Even the receptions being organised in the honour of dignitaries were subjected to political scrutiny. In 2014, the JDU severed its ties with the BJP. It led to new political interpretations of alliances cast in the colour of ambitions.
2014 AND BIHAR POLITICS
In 2005, Bihar opted for a change, hoping for development. It was considered as a new dawn in Bihar politics which did not last long. It was shattered by 2014. The politics of compromise, which the alliance of BJP and JDU did, was overshadowed by the political ambitions of their leaders. However, a new battle had begun in the state. It was an interesting fight which no one expected. In 2014, Nitish Kumar walked out of the agreement in Bihar that was signed between the BJP and the JDU. In 2010, the alliance got votes and seats. As per the agreement between the two parties, Nitish Kumar became the chief minister of Bihar. In 2014, the politics of separation took place. The JDU fared badly in the Lok Sabha polls in the State. Nitish Kumar owned moral responsibility and resigned. His confidant and veteran Dalit leader Jitan Ram Manjhi was made the chief minister of the state. In 2014, Manjhi got more ambitious and decided to have a political confrontation with Kumar. The BJP sided with Manjhi and instigated him to revolt against Kumar. It led to a new kind of political controversy in Bihar. Manjhi broke the alliance which Nitish had sealed with him. In 2015, Nitish Kumar again became the Chief Minister of the state on the basis of the support base which ensured his victory in 2010 and laid the foundation of a new political agreement by the time the Vidhan Sabha elections approached in 2015.
NEW DEAL FOR POWER IN 2015
The year 2015 saw a new alignment among old partners. It was aimed at rebuilding a new mass support base. It was, in fact, a natural alignment between two political heavyweights of the state. Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav came together. The politics of Bihar was now preparing for new innings of collaboration. The two leaders gave a new dimension to social engineering. The poll outcome was along the expected lines. The RJD-JDU alliance scripted a major victory. The RJD emerged as the biggest party after the poll result was declared, but Nitish Kumar was made the chief minister as per the deal. This alliance, however, did not last long. In 2017, Nitish Kumar once again left Lalu Prasad Yadav in the lurch. It is worth mentioning here that Nitish Kumar was the first walk out of the social justice political conglomerate in Bihar when Yadav’s JD government was only a few years old.
Nitish Kumar returned to the BJP fold to continue as Bihar’s chief minister. In politics, no one is a permanent friend or foe. Kumar took oath as the chief minister of Bihar on July 27, 2017. This was a different kind of political development. Kumar had launched a vitriolic attack on the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in run up the Assembly polls of 2015, but did not hesitate to break his alliance with the people and stitch a new one with the BJP. This was seen in the context of the alliance of 2010 and 2015. The swearing-in of Nitish Kumar on July 27, 2017 as the Chief Minister of Bihar was seen as an act of betrayal against the mandate of 2015 assembly polls. Kumar joined hands with the BJP. Now in 2020, he is fighting the poll in alliance with the BJP, but questions remain open and wide if it is an eternal deal or something new will be seen in the post-poll in Bihar.
NEW DEAL OF 2020
The 2020 assembly polls are dotted with new possibilities and alignments, but certain deals are crystal clear. For example, if the Grand Alliance wins the poll, Tejashwi Yadav will be the chief minister of Bihar. He was Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister and later on continued as the Leader of the Opposition. There is a doubt if Kumar will be easily be accepted as the chief minister if the BJP gets more seats than the JDU, though the saffron party has clarified that Nitish will be the chief minister if the NDA gets the mandate. Kumar knows very well that he himself has set a new tradition of forging and breaking alliances as per the matter of convenience, and he has every reason not to be sure that he will be accepted as the chief minister if the NDA gets the mandate.
PAST CONTINUES TO HAUNT NITISH
Nitish Kumar is being haunted by the politics of probity, for which he showed the seed in 2015 when he attacked the BJP on various counts. Irrespective of his utterances today, the past is following him like his shadow. In 2015, Nitish Kumar had said in the JDU’s state office that the BJP has accepted the RSS agenda as its political tool, which was not a part of his deal with the saffron party. This was not the politics Atal Bihari Vajpayee aspired for. However, when Nitish Kumar broke alliance with the RJD, he said that those who were with him should tell the people why the CBI is looking for them. However, today no one knows where the CBI is in Bihar where the politics is going on as usual. Now the fate of those who aspire to be the chief minister of Bihar is being sealed in the EVM. Chief Minister Kumar is faced with a new set of dilemmas. It seems that his commitment to probity in politics has become a kind of liability for him or he has allowed it to be so advertently or inadvertently. Many questions have cropped up, but Bihar is curiously waiting for a new kind of politics, which will be founded on new deals and compromises if the people desire so!
