WHO WILL BE THE NDA FACE FOR BIHAR?
The BJP-JD(U) are headed for a seat-sharing tussle in the Lok Sabha election next summer
The Janata Dal United (JD-U) and Bharatiya Janata Party have begun vying for political elbow-room in Bihar ahead of the 2019 general election. There’s simmering unease between the alliance partners on seat-sharing—whether to base it on the results of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls or allocate them according to the 2015 assembly election verdict.
Of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, the ruling National Democratic Alliance has 33, including the two Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) won in 2014, contesting against both the NDA and the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress alliance. The BJP holds 22 of the NDA’s seats. And while senior BJP leaders acknowledge the need to drop some of their non-performing MPs, surrendering seats to the JD(U) is apparently not an option.
Senior BJP leaders privately accept that keeping everyone happy will be extremely difficult for party chief Amit Shah, who plans to go to Bihar in July to take stock of the situation.
A senior JD(U) leader says the ‘2014 formula’ is “not acceptable”. Allocating seats based on which party won in 2014, he points out, would leave just nine seats for the JD(U). Of the remaining 31, besides the BJP’s 22, six would go to the Lok Janashakti Party and three to the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party.
The JD(U), instead, wants seats to be distributed in accordance with the voting pattern in the 2015 assembly polls, which they argue, is the most recent and, thus, more relevant. The BJP had won only 53 assembly seats in 2015 against the 71 won by the JD(U), then in alliance with the RJD and Congress.
The BJP is unwilling to accept this. “Seat sharing in Lok Sabha polls cannot be done on the basis of the voting pattern in assembly polls. After all, the general election will be focused on the re-election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” says a senior BJP leader. As a quid pro quo, the saffron party is willing to concede more seats to the JD(U) in the 2020 assembly polls, with a commitment to name Nitish as the NDA’s chief ministerial face.
For over a month, a section of JD(U) leaders has been making statements to suggest that Nitish should be the face of the NDA in Bihar. With the BJP deciding not to spar with its alliance partner on this issue, the JD(U) has upped the ante, with party general secretary K.C. Tyagi asserting that the JD(U) was the “big brother” in Bihar. A statement BJP leaders are unhappy with, viewing it as a claim for a larger share of the Lok Sabha seats. “Tyagiji is not an unguided missile. He does not make defining statements without the tacit approval of his political boss (Nitish),” says a top BJP leader in Patna.
Both BJP and JD(U) leaders accept that traditional formulas of seat sharing may not work for the four NDA partners in Bihar. “An amicable agreement can be reached only if all four cede some ground. Amit Shah’s Patna visit in July will initiate the discussions,” says a senior JD(U) leader.
All sides will have to remember that unlike the multipolar contest in 2014, when Nitish, Lalu and the BJP had contested separately and against each other, leading to a split in votes—2019 will likely be a bipolar contest, with the NDA arrayed against the RJD-Congress and Hindustani Awami Morcha.
The born-again RJD under Tejaswi Yadav is looking strong, having won three byelections this year—the Lok Sabha seat in Araria, the Jehanabad assembly seat in March and the Jokihat assembly seat in May.
Also, unlike in 2014, no Modi wave is expected in 2019. Nitish will remain crucial to the BJP plans in Bihar, chiefly for his Extremely Backward Caste (EBC) vote bank, which makes up 30 per cent of Bihar’s voters. It’s what allows Nitish to counter Lalu’s Yadav support base, which is 14 per cent of the voters. Lalu’s RJD, on the other hand, is trying to woo the RLSP, the NDA constituent headed by Upendra Kushwaha. The Kushwahas are the largest non-Yadav caste among EBCs and play a pivotal role in Bihar elections.
THE BJP WILL NEED NITISH KUMAR FOR HIS SIZEABLE EBC VOTE BANK