How BJP capitalised on anti-RJD votes

BUCKING perceived trends, prognostications and projections by the exit polls, the NDA has done fairly well in the Bihar elections. Until the votes were counted, received wisdom painted a gloomy scenario for the NDA: it was said that the Nitish Kumar government battled heavy anti-incumbency; the old alliance was not on an even keel because there were elements in the national and Bihar BJP who wanted to bring down the CM and precipitated rebellion in the BJP’s own ranks.

In contrast, the Mahagathbandhan, a conglomerate of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress, the CPI(M), CPI and the CPI(M-L) Liberation, was held up as a near-coalition of ideological homogeneity and interests with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav at the helm. The battle of the perceived dissimilar and the equal yielded a mandate that helped the BJP improve upon its showing in the 2015 elections. The heavy-lifting by the BJP saw the NDA hold its own in a tightly fought election in which the Janata Dal (United) suffered, ostensibly not so much because of anti-incumbency as by the damage inflicted by a former ally, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), that cost the alliance 40-50 seats.

A remarkable feature was the adroitness with which the BJP distanced itself from the JD(U) to the extent that it was unsinged by the mood against Nitish. The BJP rose to the position it occupies on Nitish’s back, but the outcome is attributed to PM Narendra Modi and the central leadership. Indeed, the Bihar BJP had Sushil Modi, the Deputy CM, as the pivot for as long as one remembers. A personable leader who refused to identify himself with the Hindutva school of thought, Sushil was close to Nitish for several years. The rapport they shared was a big reason why the alliance survived, but for a brief spell, even after Nitish’s relations with him soured. However, Sushil was not a favourite of the state leaders, whose sole agenda was to de-couple the BJP from the JD(U) and go solo.

The BJP played along with Sushil to a degree wherein the leaders allowed him to choose many candidates and play down the Hindutva theme in the discourse. Doubts over Delhi and Patna not being on the same page arose when Chiraj Paswan quit the NDA and declared he would contest on his own, with the caveat that he would not field candidates against the BJP. The tactic was evidently meant to keep a line open with the BJP in the post-poll scenario. However, after Chirag campaigned aggressively against Nitish, Sushil remonstrated. By then, many Bihar BJP leaders were upset with Sushil for denying them tickets and saw his anti-Chirag protests as an opportune moment to join the LJP that was short of contestants. Most of the dissenters lost the elections, but Chirag ensured that wherever the LJP was pitted against the JD(U), the latter lost. The ‘revolt’ cost the BJP virtually nothing. Voters voted for the party and not for the candidates.

In assessing the BJP’s unexpectedly credible showing, other factors helped. The first was the continual presence of BJP chief JP Nadda and the general secretary in charge, Bhupender Yadav, in Patna, undeterred by the pandemic. Nadda, whose Bihar connect goes back to his student days at Patna University and later as an activist in Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement against the Emergency, addressed several real and virtual rallies, while Yadav, by now a seasoned organisational hand, straightened out the wrinkles caused by the dissenters.

The second one, that went virtually unnoticed, was the consolidation of the anti-RJD votes in the BJP’s favour in the last two phases of polling when the buzz to make Tejashwi the CM reached a crescendo. The BJP never bought the circulated theory that the upper castes had shed their antipathy for Lalu Prasad’s party and the youth among the Brahmins, Rajputs and Bhumihars would root for Tejashwi. Instead, it revived memories of Lalu’s 15-year regime and played on two themes: the ‘jungle raj’ marked by killings and abductions, and the arrival of another dynast. The reflex reaction was that the present generation of boys and girls, in search of jobs and a better life, were taken in by Tejashwi’s promise to create 10 lakh jobs in the state and were untouched by the ‘jungle raj’ theme. In hindsight, the BJP’s rhetoric against Lalu and his heir apparent seems to have worked across the demographic divide, not just the upper castes. The BJP-JD(U)’s backward castes, especially those from the extremely backward communities, stayed the course with the NDA, afraid that Tejashwi’s ascendancy would unleash the ‘might and muscle’ of the Yadavs.

Tejashwi assiduously cultivated an image that would mark a departure from his parents and usher in a makeover of the RJD. Like other political legatees, his political engagements were patchy. When Bihar was plunged into a crisis forced by the pandemic, a national lockdown and a huge inflow of its people who had migrated to other states to search for work, the young man was missing. However, when he returned to Patna, he plunged himself into political activity and set up soup kitchens to feed the returning migrants. Last July, on the RJD’s foundation day, he publicly apologised for his parents’ misrule. Tejashwi studiously dropped Lalu’s and Rabri’s photos from the RJD’s posters and signalled a major leap in its politics by discarding ‘social justice’ and adopting ‘economic justice’. The two phrases signify opposite ends of socialist politics. ‘Social justice’ is synonymous with backward caste empowerment and is anathema to the upper castes, while ‘economic justice’ denoted material aspirations to appeal to the youth.

Tejashwi’s campaign blitzkrieg yielded enough to put the RJD in the pole position. The belief is that had he been less indulgent towards the Congress and offered fewer seats, the outcome might have been better because the Congress was vanquished by a supposedly unpopular JD(U) on several seats. On the other hand, his gambit to accomodate the Left parties and particularly the CPI (M-L) Liberation helped. Confronted by an adversary as formidable as the BJP, the political greenhorn seems to have earned his spurs.