BIHAR: THE ALLY WHO MATTERS
Shah blinks and reasserts faith in Nitish as he makes noises about the CAA-NRC
It’s an election year and Nitish Kumar knows it well. He sounded conciliatory on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, when senior leaders of his party, the JD(U), Prashant Kishor and Pavan K. Varma, went public with their criticism of the new law but seems to have changed his line after Union home minister Amit Shah paid a visit and declared that Nitish would lead the BJP-JD(U) alliance in the state election. Likely emboldened by Shah’s vote of confidence, Nitish has ticked off both Kishor and Varma in no uncertain terms, saying they are “free to leave” if they want.
Speaking in Vaishali district, Shah, till recently the BJP national president, said he was there to scotch “all rumours”. “The NDA will contest the next Bihar poll under Nitishji’s leadership. The BJP-JD(U) alliance is unbreakable,” he said. Shah’s statement should silence the handful of state leaders pressing the BJP to stake its claim to the chief minister’s post.
Just three days before Shah’s Bihar visit, Nitish had categorically rejected the need for a National Register of Citizens (NRC)—of which Shah has been the mascot and most vocal advocate—and expressed a willingness to have an open debate on the CAA. Many BJP hawks had taken umbrage, and a strong response was expected from Shah. That the usually bellicose Shah let it slide is being seen as a sign of his reluctance to disturb a winning combination.
Having recently burnt its fingers in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, the BJP leadership is clearly not up to dealing with another warring ally in another big state; Bihar sends up 40 MPs to the Lok Sabha. Elections are just 10 months away and as a JD(U) leader, who preferred to stay anonymous, says, “The BJP needs to understand that Nitish, at 68, may be seeking his last term as chief minister. State BJP leaders must have patience and back him.”
A deep scrutiny of the 2019 Lok Sabha poll results reveals that the BJP, despite the tally of 17 seats and 9.6 million votes (of the total 40 million), was still not the biggest gainer in the state; Nitish’s JD(U), with nearly 9 million votes, was. The BJP got 9.3 million votes in the 2015 state assembly poll which it lost to the RJD-JD(U) alliance. The BJP’s 2019 LS vote figures recorded an increase of 310,000 votes. Nitish’s JD(U) bagged over 8.9 million votes, an astounding 38.7 per cent leap over its 2015 figures.
Bihar has added 6.1 million new voters since the 2014 Lok Sabha election, and the JD(U) leadership believes every second new voter voted for Nitish, one reason why it’s not looking for new alliances. “We cannot be part of a ‘tainted’ alliance (a reference to RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav’s conviction in the fodder scam),” says a JD(U) leader. “Young voters may not take too kindly to it.”
A section of JD(U) leaders, however, are apprehensive about seat distribution. In the 2010 assembly poll, which Nitish contested in alliance with the BJP, the JD(U) had fielded candidates in 141 seats to the saffron party’s 102. In the 2019 general election, the two parties contested an equal number of seats. More importantly, the results—the BJP won all 17 that it contested—have apparently put it on an even keel with the JD(U). Seat negotiations are sure to start with the BJP demanding a far bigger share than in 2010. But as the JD(U) leader puts it, “State elections are all about electing a chief minister.” And here the party is sure it holds the trump card. ■