Parties fine tune caste strategy in Bihar
RJD alliance with various parties in state worries JD-U
With caste factor playing a major role in Bihar politics, political parties have started shaping up caste management strategy to gain in the Lok Sabha elections.
As per the seat-sharing formula, the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) has been given most of the Seemanchal region seats where Muslims have maximum representation. Sources said that the BJP which doesn’t have much stake in the region agreed to give most of the Seemanchal seats to JD(U) due to Nitish Kumar’s secular image among minorities in Bihar.
Political analysts are of the opinion that the tussle in the region is likely to get interesting during polls as the RJD, which has been banking on M-Y (Muslim Yadav) combination floated by party president Lalu Yadav in the 90s, and a section of OBCs is also trying to improve its prospects among EBCs, MBCs, and dalits.
According to analysts Nitish Kumar who is often termed as “Chankaya” of Bihar politics had started working on his social engineering strategy before 2005 and managed to gain support from OBCs, EBCs, Mahadalits, and minorities.
But sources claim the JD(U) has been after the RJD that worried managed to cobble up unity with various political parties who have a strong voter base in the state.
In the present scenario, Muslims feel that they had voted for a secular alliance in 2015 Assembly elections but because of “political ambitions”, Nitish Kumar broke ties with Lalu Yadav and went back to the NDA fold in July 2017. The impact was seen when RJD candidate Shahnawaz Alam won the Jokihat Assembly bypoll by defeating JD(U) candidate Murshid Alam by a huge margin of 41,225 votes.
Bypoll was necessitated by the resignation of sitting JD(U) MLA Sarfaraz Alam, the elder brother of the RJD candidate who also went on to win the bypoll for Araria Lok Sabha seat on RJD ticket.