Five reasons BJP will embarrass itself in Bihar
The odds may be heavily against Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar for the forthcoming elections in the state - ten years' anti-incumbency, breaking away from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), allying with Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress, and the deterioration on governance and law and order fronts - but the sailing for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) too will not be easy.
The situation for the BJP in Bihar is not as it was a year ago. The party's prospects for an easy win seemed bright just after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Just a day after the BJP's landslide victory, a demoralised Nitish resigned as chief minister on May 17, 2014, owning moral responsibility for the poor performance of his Janata Dal (United), which won just two seats, and installed Jitan Ram Manjhi in his place.
As Manjhi asserted himself and was seen as hobnobbing with the BJP, Nitish removed him and again became the chief minister on February 22, 2015. But the developments thereafter have loosened the BJP's grip over victory in Bihar. These are the five reasons why the BJP may find the going tough in the poll-bound state:
1. The Nitish, Lalu and Congress alliance: The RJD, JD(U) and the Congress got more votes than the BJP, Union consumer affairs minister Ramvilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) combine in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Though it did not translate into seats as they had not formed an alliance back then. While the RJD won only four seats, the Congress party and the JD(U) won two seats each. In contrast, the BJP won 22 seats while its partners LJP and RLSP won six and three seats respectively. Nitish and Lalu have since buried the hatchet and decided to contest the Assembly elections together. The Congress too will form a part of the alliance, which has been stitched for the first time in Bihar against the BJP.
2. Chief ministerial candidate: Albeit reluctantly, Lalu has agreed to the projection of Nitish as the chief ministerial candidate of their alliance. But the BJP is still dithering on the question of naming a candidate who will be the face of its coalition. A situation similar to the one the party faced in the Delhi elections seems to be developing. In Bihar too, there is a problem of plenty for the BJP-LJP alliance. There are too many claimants for the top post. The JD(U)-RJD combine will try to derive political mileage if the BJP-LJP alliance does not name a chief ministerial candidate. And there will be fear of sabotage, as was the case in Delhi, if someone is declared as the face of the alliance.
3. Vote bank politics: The JD(U)-RJD-Congress combine can bank upon their votebanks of Yadavs (11 per cent), Muslims (17 per cent), Koeris (four per cent), Kurmis (2.4 per cent) and a portion of the 15 per cent Dalit and the 17 per cent upper caste voters. On the other hand, the BJP does not have any solid votebank. It will bank on the votes of a large chunk of the 12 per cent upper caste franchise, a significant portion of the 15 per cent Dalits, (Paswan belongs to the Dusadh sub-caste having six per cent votes), five per cent Kushwahas and the minuscule Bania votes, which are concentrated mainly in the urban areas. The BJP would heave a sigh of relief if Manjhi, whom they are wooing, decides to go along with them. Manjhi, a musahar, belongs to the Mahadalit sub-caste which has 11 per cent vote share in the state. Caste and community wise, the BJP does not have much to cheer about. It will try to woo the voters based on Modi's image and the developmental plank.
4. Modi losing wow factor: Modi's charm is not the same as it was a year ago. The BJP fought the assembly elections in Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir riding on Modi's image and performed its best everywhere. The party got an absolute majority in Haryana while it formed governments in the remaining states with pre or post-poll alliance partners. After one year of remaining in power, Modi's popularity rating has slided. According to the India Today Group-Cicero snap poll, although 56 per cent of the respondents felt that the government's performance had been good, 33 per cent felt Modi should be the prime minister - down from 57 per cent in August 2014.
5. Delhi defeat: The BJP's winning juggernaut came to a grinding halt in the Delhi Assembly elections in February 2015. The invincibility of Modi and BJP president Amit Shah was dented for the first time after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party won 67 of the 70 seats. This has resulted in nervousness for the BJP. Victory in the Bihar elections, due later this year, which seemed so imminent, will no longer be easy for the BJP.