Message from Patna

This Sunday in Patna, a full bench Opposition joined battle with Modi’s handpicked RSS-dominated election machinery for the battle of Bihar, matching every Modi ‘jumla’ with a home-grown response.  Sonia Gandhi and Nitish Kumar shared the stage for the first time ever. The path to proximity was smoothened by the generous allocation of 40 seats to the Congress. An equally unlikely event took place when Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad held a joint conference to announce the seat sharing agreement. The path to their alliance became smoother after Lalu Prasad sensed the political wind and became amenable to the idea of Nitish Kumar taking the lead role. The absolute index of opposition unity provided the ballast for the Patna rally but the adrenalin flowed as a result of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's walk back from the land ordnance. 

The combined Opposition has cottoned on to three issues which Modi’s slick election machinery will find difficult to argue against. The first was Modi's comments on Nitish Kumar's ‘adverse’ Bihari DNA.  This has allowed Nitish Kumar to invoke the issue of Bihar’s ‘izzat’. Lalu Prasad rubbed it in further at the rally by wondering whether an “outsider with the blood of a businessman in his veins” would ever be able to value Bihar and its people. The second was Nitish Kumar’s promise of a Bihar which people won't leave to find opportunities, an important reason for the swing in Modi's favour in the last Lok Sabha elections. The third was the loss of credibility brought upon himself by the Prime Minister in not specifying the source of funds for the Bihar package. 

On the other hand, the RSS has put in place an effort to maintain the tempo of low-intensity communal discord. The arithmetic is in favour of this grand alliance. But with RSS ‘pracharaks’ being given complete control of the BJP campaign, the Opposition would need to mobilise opinion at the grassroots against inter-community polarisation. The secular alliance cannot allow the low-level communal instigation to define the coming poll in Bihar.