Oppn lacks credible anchor

Senior journalist

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After serial routs in the Assembly elections, the BJP has pinned its hopes on Bihar for salvation. More than any other party, the BJP knows that another blow in a state — and a large and politically crucial one like Bihar — could impact its national salience and credibility because, remember, after being voted out of power in successive Lok Sabha polls in 2004 and 2009, the BJP regained its larger profile only after winning the provincial elections, independently or with smart alliances.

With about nine months to go before Bihar speaks its mind out, the BJP has shed the spirit of adventurism and audacity that marked its electoral forays after 2019. There is no boast of going solo and forming a government on its own. The BJP seems wedded to its longstanding partners, the Janata Dal (United) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), for better or for worse, because it paid a price for jettisoning the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and, to a smaller extent, for discarding the All-Jharkhand Students Union in Jharkhand. It refused to pander to the internal clamour to have a BJP CM instead of being yoked to JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar, although in the recent past, the Central leaders were tempted to consider the idea.

The BJP’s optimism to retain Bihar stems largely from the Opposition’s shambolic state. Just who is leading the five-party coalition, which given the caste permutations and combinations and the lineup of leaders, each with a considerable caste following, ought to make for a winning template? Notionally and otherwise, the RJD, helmed by Tejashwi Yadav, the scion of Lalu Prasad, who is in prison, would have captained the battle against the BJP-JD(U)-LJP. The RJD carries a legacy of ruling the state for years, albeit with a dodgy record, but nobody could take away from the formidable social alliance that Lalu Prasad had forged with the Yadavs and Muslims as the bulwark against a weak Opposition. The RJD’s caste arithmetic collapsed in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls. If it was resuscitated in the 2015 Assembly election, it was largely because the RJD went along with the JD(U) and the Congress and gained credibility because of the association with Nitish Kumar. That chapter is history.

Tejashwi has a long way to go before earning his political chops. He has not initiated a campaign to unsettle the incumbent government. Not that there was a dearth of issues. The floods, the encephalitis deaths, a questionable log of the much-vaunted prohibition policy and the sexual and physical assault of young girls at a Muzaffarpur shelter home, which implicated politicians and local apparatchiks, were ripe for the picking. Apart from issuing periodic report cards, the RJD under Tejashwi was conspicuous by an absence on the streets. Tejashwi wore a sense of entitlement as Lalu’s anointed heir on his mantle, like most other dynasts. It was as though he didn’t need to prove anything to anyone, least of all the RJD. Worse, the Lalu family expended precious time on sorting out domestic rows, fought in public glare, between Tejashwi and his brother Tej Pratap, Tej Pratap’s messy marriage that was terminated after his spouse accused Lalu’s wife Rabri Devi and his sister Misa Bharti of physical aggression and Misa’s barely camouflaged ambition to claim the RJD’s leadership.

However, sometimes elections throw up new elements, although it is hard to forecast how these factors would eventually play out and whether these would bring about substantive changes in the storyline. Prashant Kishor’s reputation precedes him. He piloted PM Modi’s war room in 2014 and delivered the results as part of a core team of go-getters. Kishor fell out with the BJP, but built on his formidable name by helping Nitish Kumar win a second term in 2015. The Kishor-Nitish camaraderie unravelled in 2020, but Kishor, who is at present working with the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and the DMK in Tamil Nadu, seems resolute to prove he is not just a political consultant/strategist. He signalled he would be a serious player (although he is mum on whether he will float a party) when he launched the ‘Baat Bihar Ki’ campaign to connect with young people, who, he believed, nurtured a dream to send Bihar up in the A-list states. What Kishor’s mobilisation leads to is hazy.

He proffered an answer of sorts, when days after the campaign kicked off, he met with leaders Upendra Kushwaha of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), Jitan Ram Manjhi of the Hindustan Awam Morcha (Secular), Mukesh Sahni of the Vikassheel Insaan Party and Madan Mohan Jha, the Bihar Congress president. This quartet, including the Congress, is part of the RJD-led formation, but the leaders lately expressed their reservations about Tejashwi, suggesting he was not up to the task of taking on the BJP-JD(U).

In the run-up, Kishor’s role will be watched to see if his drive transcends his primary skill and talent as a political strategist or whether he works towards welding an Opposition alliance. On his part, Tejashwi made it clear that he has no use for a political consultant like Kishor. With state elections getting increasingly presidential — Delhi is a recent example —the Bihar Opposition’s greatest challenge is to build a consensus around a candidate and project him well on time.

Beaten and a little bruised after the recent electoral upsets, the BJP too has apparently realised that Nitish Kumar is still its best bet in Bihar. From a position of relative strength, and with LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan’s backing, Nitish has laid down the ground rules to the BJP: no hyper-nationalism, Pakistan-baiting or hate speech. The elections will be fought on local issues and be governance and development centred. To stay relevant, the Opposition has to start punching holes in Nitish’s claims in right earnest.