Whether Change?

Sometime early in April, a media house is organising a public debate in Patna. The cheeky topic that’s up for discussion: Bihar is incapable of throwing up a prime ministerial candidate. Not surprisingly, many political leaders were invited but few agreed to participate. It’s a minefield they would rather avoid, some of them explained, conscious that a lot can change in politics in 24 hours.

Indeed, even the most carefully cra­f­ted strategies can go awry at times. One such that has set the cat among the pig­­eons is Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar positioning himself as the only big NDA leader to publicly challenge the Modi-for-PM feeding frenzy while also holding out the tantalising prospect of supporting a bel­eaguered UPA if the latter confers ‘special status’ on Bihar. Preferring a less than literal reading of the situation, a senior leader of the state’s BJP-JD(U) coalition says it’s “all part of his perception management”. He concedes the Centre may not be able to notify the special status before the 2014 general elections—but then there are only positives in rallying public sentiment around the issue.

Nitish has been careful to keep escape routes open while also keeping the pot boiling—a good enough reason to susp­ect there’s more going on than meets the eye. This is why, in Bihar’s evenly spread air of equivocation, the spec­ul­ation over Nitish parting ways with the BJP fails to enthuse the opposition. The mood in most political camps is disti­nctly non-committal and som­bre—and this in the days before Holi. Even the illumination and ‘Bihar Divas’ festivities fail to lift the veil of uneasiness.   

One sceptic is Abdul Bari Sidd­iqui of the RJD, leader of the opposition and a scathing critic of the Nitish spiel. It was the ass­e­mbly that passed not one but four resolu­tions—in 2000, 2002, 2006 and 2012—for a special package or a special status for Bihar from the Cen­tre, he says. “But the CM has hij­acked the issue, made it look like a JD(U) programme, spent public money to canvas for it and yet failed to involve even ally BJP while holding the adhikar rally in New Delhi.”

Siddiqui has not been shy of citing this in the House too. Stung by his critic­ism, Nitish had told opposition ben­ches that they need not harbour any ill­u­sion about a rift in the NDA. “Jo kuchh bhi ho raha hai, aapsi sahmati se ho raha hai,” Siddiqui remembers him say­ing, “aage kya hoga, kal kisne dekha hai”. This, he believes, is as close an admission as any of the JD(U) and BJP playing out a carefully crafted charade to keep their resp­e­ctive fields watered. “Nitish has no inte­ntion of leaving NDA. He isn’t serious about either secularism or special status.”

Indeed, there’s a growing section that feels the CM’s assistance pleas are suspect. “On the one hand, he says the government is starved of funds, on the other he splurges on bui­lding parks, convention centres, museums and holding cultural meets,” smirks a corporate leader in the Pataliputra Industrial Estate area. 

This widespread feeling that the whole idea of a Nitish-BJP rift has been chor­eo­gra­phed for a certain effect owes to some basic ground realities. Aggressive Hindu­tva and any talk of Narendra Modi as PM, state BJP lea­ders point out, tend to unite minority voters. Soft Hindutva and keep­ing Modi away from campaigning, they say, have yielded rich dividends so far. In fact, minority voters had mellowed and had even begun voting NDA, ele­c­ting a Muslim, Saba Zafar, for the first time on a BJP ticket in the last assembly poll. It, therefore, makes little sense to do anything that could reverse this and rally the minority voters against the coalition.

The possibility of a consolidation of the Muslim vote—which by definition can only be away from it—clearly scares the NDA in Bihar. “If the Congress, RJD and LJP come together (they had conte­sted independently in the last election) on a secular front, and Modi does become an electoral issue, we are screwed,” admits a senior state BJP leader. None of the state BJP leaders are willing to be quoted on this though. “It’s too sensitive an issue and the situation is so fluid and uncertain that we are under instructions to refuse interviews,” they explain. The Muslim vote, accounting for an estimated 18 per cent of the total, cannot be wished away in Bihar, they add. And with the Yadavs (16 per cent) again warming up to Laloo Prasad, it is a delicate balance.

BJP leaders are equally conscious that if the party won a record 91 seats in the assembly in 2010, it was in no small measure due to its positive association with the carefully cultivated public image of Nitish Kumar. With no matching state-level leader in their own ranks, they cannot afford to do without him. That said, they insist that Nitish needs the BJP as badly, if not more. His political career has been built on anti-Congress platforms and he would be the last person to root for Rahul Gandhi or accept his leadership, they believe. If  Nitish leaves the NDA, they are sure, it will weaken both the parties.  

“We do have a dilemma. Narendra Modi is the most popular leader in the BJP and there is immense pressure on the party to project him as a PM candidate. But we are also aware that in states like Bihar, it could boomerang and we may end up losing seats,” confesses a leader close to the BJP think-tank in Delhi. Even Modi, he claims, appreciates the dilemma and is hence trying to carve out a softer public persona.

BJP insiders foresee two scenarios in 2014. If the party goes into poll battle without Modi as a PM-mascot, it may likely win around 120 Lok Sabha. On the other hand, according to the more bullish estimates, projecting Modi could spike the tally up to anywhere between 160-180. But that would still leave the BJP short of the halfway mark by around 100 seats—and render the job of finding allies more difficult. The decision to project Modi as PM, therefore, is by no means open and shut.

So how would the second scenario—of the BJP deciding to go with a gladiatorial Modi at its helm nationally—play out in Bihar? It was initially felt that the JD(U) would then do better to split and go on its own—to minimise damage and harness the anti vote. There is a fresh realisation, though, that this is risky and could lead to a “point of no ret­urn”. Nitish cannot possibly walk out of the NDA before the polls and rejoin it afterwards, especially if the BJP reaches wit­hin sniffing distance of a majority. Because it would then aff­ect his credibility and be disastrous for both JD(U) and the BJP in the assembly elections, which is due late in 2015.

In fact, the way the election calendar is set increases the risks of upsetting the status quo at this juncture. Breaking the coalition in Bihar now would req­u­ire Nitish to engineer splits and defections from the RJD or even the BJP to muster a majority. The required number is admittedly small but inviting a season of flux upon oneself can never be a zero-liability game—in competitive politics, personality issues at the micro level can create their own dynamic and the exodus bug could bite all parties in unforeseen ways.

The next tricky phase will come when he tries to reconstitute the cabinet so as to replace its BJP members. An exercise like this, with ass­embly polls two-and-a-half years away, could lead to dissidence in his own party. What’s more, the break will enable the antagonistic section in the BJP to become even more vocal. “As it is, several BJP MLAs are vocal critics in the assembly. So much so, the government is sometimes unable to reply to questions raised by the opposition, which numbers barely 25 in a House of 240. How can he then hope to cope with a more formidable opposition?” wonders Siddiqui.

Many Muslim MLAs, including Sidd­i­qui, suspect the CM’s anti-Modi crede­n­tials. “He won’t break bread with Modi in public but has no such inhibition when it comes to Arun Jaitley, who is close to Modi,”  scoffs one of them. Ano­ther chips in: “Nitish had no problem in flagging off Advani’s jan chetna yatra in 2011 from Sitabdiara; does he consider Advani to be more moderate and secular than Modi?”

The CM, they agree, has gone out of his way to ‘appease’ the minorities, giving ad support to Urdu dailies, naming e­minent Musl­ims to boards and commissions and the like. But there is a sullen ire over his silence on police from other states roun­ding up Muslim youth as terror suspects. ‘Laloo wouldn’t have allowed this,’ is the refrain. The plight of the victims of police firing at Forbesganj—yet to receive compensation after two years—also rankles.

Too many assumptions. Too many IFS and buts and too many imponderables have left both people and politicians guessing in the state. No wonder they are all holding their breath.

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Hands up At the Adhikar rally in Delhi. (Photograph by Tribhuvan Tiwari)

Who’s Afraid Of Nitish Kumar?

Will Nitish leave the NDA if Narendra Modi is projected as the alliance’s prime ministerial candidate?
Such an announcement will be delayed as long as possible and is likely only just before the polls. For Nitish can then take the moral high ground, contest indepen­dently and weigh his post-poll options. He may support the NDA if the coalition settles on a leader other than Modi post-polls. If the UPA forms the govern­m­ent again, he may also rejoin the NDA. But the question is, will the minority voters buy it?

Will Nitish leave if Modi heads the BJP’s national campaign committee?
He may or may not. He may take the stand that it is an internal issue of the BJP and he has no reason to interfere.

If the Centre grants Bihar special status, will Nitish play footsie with UPA?
Unlikely. He may make the right noises and continue with his issue-based support as he did in the presidential election by voting for Pranab Mukherjee. Anti-Congressism is in his DNA and he is unlikely to sacrifice his convictions.

So, who is afraid of Nitish Kumar?
Everybody. The BJP and JD(U) are not sure if the present ploy will work with the electorate. The RJD and the LJP are afraid of being left in the lurch if the Congress and Nitish stitch up an alliance. Even Nitish Kumar should be apprehensive on how his moves will affect his credibility.

By Uttam Sengupta in Patna