Kanahiya is not an exception, Biharis can't stand Modi
The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) row took a totally different turn when JNU Students' Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar walked out of jail on conditional bail and launched a fiery and emotive speech. The young lad from Bihar, who had been painted as an anti-national, became the talk of the nation.
What pulled at the heartstrings of people was his explanation of the term "azadi" or freedom as he understood it. He said: “We are not seeking 'azadi' from India. We want 'azadi' within India." Ironically, Kanhaiya delivered his speech a few hours after one of the most powerful orators in contemporary Indian politics, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, made a forceful speech in Parliament.
But in terms of resonance, impact and coverage by the media, Kanhaiya's speech won hands down. Praise for the student leader's speech came from all quarters, except the BJP. The party went into panic mode, with Union minister Venkaiah Naidu advising the JNU president to concentrate on his studies rather than politics.
Naidu said Kanhaiya was enjoying free publicity. At the BJP youth wing's two-day national conclave in Vrindavan, it was Kanhaiya who preyed on their collective minds. Like Modi, who never forgets to mention his humble chaiwala pedigree, Kanhaiya, it turned out, had a bigger halo of humbleness to back him up. He is the son of an anganwadi worker mother who earns a mere Rs 3,500 a month and whose father is a bedridden paralytic.
Now here was a Bihari youngster from Masnadpur Tola in Bihar's Begusarai district, who suddenly became a big irritant in the side of Modi's carefully built public persona. But Kanhaiya is not the first from Bihar to irk Modi. In fact, Modi's biggest detractors have mostly been from Bihar, a cross that Modi carries with a show of annoyance.
As a chief minister of Gujarat, if Modi nurtured prime ministerial ambitions, so did Bihar's chief minister Nitish Kumar. In June 2010, the BJP's national executive was going on in Patna. Full-page advertisements had appeared in leading Hindi dailies in Patna thanking the then Gujarat chief minister for the Rs 5 crore flood relief money... It had an old photograph of Modi and Nitish, palms clutched and held aloft.
Furious over the picture and the advertisement, Nitish cancelled a dinner he was to hold for BJP leaders. And if that wasn't enough, the Bihar chief minister ensured that Rs 5 crore was refunded to the Gujarat government. In 2013, the Bihar chief minister broke his 17-year alliance with the BJP over Modi's elevation as the the party's campaign committee chief for the 2014 general elections.
The 2014 Lok Sabha elections was the only occasion when Bihar stood with Modi, when the BJP and its allies bagged 31 out of a total 40 seats in the state. Noted election strategist, Prashant Kishor, worked with Modi from December 2011 planning his 2014 campaign.
By the 2015 Bihar assembly elections, this modern day Chanakya, switched sides to Nitish and ensured a humiliating defeat for Modi. People of Bihar rejected Modi and interestingly or ironically, Kishor too is a Bihari. The first to raise the banner of revolt in the NDA, against the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat under Modi's chief ministership, was also a leader from Bihar.
The then Union coal and mines minister Ram Vilas Paswan resigned from the Atal Behari Vajpayee government and parted ways with the NDA. Paswan accused the Vajpayee government of failing in its duty to intervene effectively in restoring communal harmony. Even within the BJP, MPs who dared to speak either against Modi, his government or the workings of the party have all been from Bihar.
Shatrughan Sinha, BJP MP from Patna Saheb, doesn't miss any occasion to take jibes at the prime minister. He publicly praises Nitish and had come out in support of Kanhaiya.
Former Union home secretary and Ara MP, RK Singh, has not only come out in support of Kanhaiya but had also accused the BJP of selling poll tickets to criminals during the Bihar assembly elections in 2015.
Furthermore, Kirti Azad, MP from Darbhanga, had accused Union finance minister Arun Jaitley for presiding over a corrupt Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) earning him a suspension from the party. Then MP from Begusarai, Bhola Singh, had squarely blamed the prime minister for defeat in Bihar.
He said Modi's "unparliamentary language" during the election campaign was one of the reasons the BJP lost in Bihar. Former finance minister in the Vajpayee government and senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha too belongs to Bihar and has often attacked Modi on specific issues.
Sinha thinks there is no dialogue under Modi and the BJP may meet the same fate as the Indira Gandhi-led Congress, which was drubbed in the elections after Emergency. BJP candidates were defeated in most of the seats in Bihar assembly elections where Modi addressed election rallies. While people from Bihar may have put up several hurdles in the way of Modi but it seems he too has retaliated, albeit quietly.
Very few people from Bihar hold key positions in the present government or the party. There is no representation from Bihar in the cabinet committee on security, a contrast when compared to the last NDA government under Vajpayee, when Bihar always had at least one representation. No one from Bihar is in the BJP's Margdarshak Mandal, Parliamentary Board. Bihar's score in the BJP president's team is also pitiable, there is not a single BJP general secretary from the state, all there is, is one lone BJP vice-president from Bihar.
Why the mismatch between Modi and Bihar? Recent history provides ample proof that people from Bihar keep rubbing Modi the wrong way. It is a curse that Modi seems to carry... while he can wow the country he gets caught out by the Bihari.