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Multiple Choice Qs

Nitish’s anti-Modi positioning conceals a more nuanced take on NDA

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Multiple Choice Qs
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Patna Punch

Led by JD(U), the A in NDA looks precariously poised

  • Nitish Kumar’s comment that “only one who can carry with him all the diverse sections of people can become the leader of the nation” is galvanising anti-Modi forces within BJP and outside.
  • Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Chauhan, former Union ministers Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha have endorsed L.K. Advani’s seniority, calling him the BJP’s “tallest leader”
  • NDA member Shiromani Akali Dal has thrown in its lot with the Advani brigade in BJP for the moment. The Shiv Sena, like the JD(U), wants the BJP to declare its prime minister candidate beforehand.
  • NCP’s Sharad Pawar, who met Modi in Goa in February, has queered the BJP pitch by stating in an interview that a “PM-aspirant has to be secular, open-minded, liberal. Being popular is not the only criterion.”
  • Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik has ruled out the possibility of the Biju Janata Dal rejoining the BJP in the NDA for the next general elections. He says the “Third Front is a very healthy option”.
  • The BJP has barely 40 seats out of 310 from the six big states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal in the current Lok Sabha
  • In about 150 constituencies in UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal, Assam and Maharashtra, Muslim voters play a decisive role. In 2009, BJP won 12 seats in Bihar, seven of them with high Muslim population.

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Every week, the “market test results” for Product NaMo vary. Last week, there was some thundering applause from the corporates as the Gujarat chief minister delivered such pearls of wisdom as “add another P (People) to PPP so that it can become PPPP.” He paused for effect, and the audience clapped on cue.

This week, the Narendra Modi party was pooped somewhat by Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, whose tacitly expressed resistance to the Gujarat CM has now become open and irrevocable opposition. It’s a well-calibrated plan to make the most of positioning himself very visibly in this role. To understand Nit­ish’s consistency on the issue of Modi, a brief recap may be in order. During the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, pictures of the Gujarat riots, more specifically of a pleading Qutubuddin Ansari, hands folded and tears flowing, were plaste­red all over Bihar. Laloo Prasad Yadav’s RJD did very well, bucking anti-incumbency and taking 22 of the state’s 40 seats. Six months later, though, the JD(U)-BJP alliance pipped him in the assembly polls, and yet again after six months of President’s rule.

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The upshot being, the Gujarat riots played a role in the national defeat of the NDA in 2004, and this tale was revealed most starkly in Bihar. That is why, ever since he came to power in 2005, Nitish has been steadfast in one thing: no Modi in Bihar. He even ret­urned a flood relief cheque the Gujarat CM had given in 2010. As a source close to the Bihar CM quipped, “Nitish says the cheque of Rs 5 crore was cashed very quickly by the Gujarat government.” All this is fine and logical, but what exactly is his plan vis-a-vis the NDA? It’s a game of subtle balances whose result will be known only in the unfolding.

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No walkover Modi at the national council meet. (Photograph by Jitender Gupta)

Currently, Nitish’s strategy operates on the presumption (and informal understanding) that the Congress will keep making gestures to appease the JD(U). This is because it would not like the party to be hostile when it negotiates critical sessions in Parliament. The UPA would ideally like to survive the full term as it hopes certain economic returns from pro-people policies to kick in closer to the year-end, although it is debatable whether the regime can buck the anti-incumbency of two terms. The fact that the economic survey spoke of revisiting the issue of special category status and that Union finance minister P. Chid­am­baram of “devolution” are being read as signs of a disarming approach.

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Besides the emotions on  the “communal-secular” front, the other issue on which Nitish is positioning himself as significantly different from Modi is corporate ‘sponsorship’. He apparently believes that there is a price to be paid for corporate endorsements as it determines the nature of investments in what is then called “development”. In the coming months, therefore, in the build-up to an election rife with competing governance models, Nitish sees himself as the face who will strongly endorse the idea of public investment as opposed to private or Modi’s PPPP.

What seems to be emerging, says a source close to Nitish, is a dual strategy vis-a-vis the BJP. On the one hand, there is the likelihood of parting ways for the Lok Sabha polls with the possibility of a rapprochement for the next assembly elections. However, the levels of acrimony in the parting will determine whether it will be a separation or a divorce between the JD(U) and BJP, who have had a relatively smooth marriage lasting 17 years. “Whether or not Nitish joins hands with the Congress,” says Patna-based economist Saibal Gupta, “will be determined by the levels of hostility on display with the BJP. If it is a civilised parting, it is one story, but if the charges and counter-charges fly, then the joining of hands between Nitish, Congress, Ram Vilas Paswan, and even Laloo, to take on Modi in Bihar should not be seen as impossible.”

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A JD(U) MP, meanwhile, says, “Nitish has taken various steps with the knowledge of the BJP leadership, who themselves are wary of Modi strutting around and projecting himself.” Inserting yet another googly, a second party leader says, “Although Nitish throws up the name of L.K. Advani as an acceptable face, it is really not that simple.”

Another flashback here would be pertinent. The greatest “secular” moment of Laloo Yadav’s career came when he stopped L.K. Advani’s Ram rath yatra in 1990 and arrested the charioteer. It was a seminal event in contemporary history when the forces of Mandal clashed with the forces of mandir. A year ago, when Nitish flagged off another one of Advani’s rath yatras (against corruption this time), Laloo immediately piped up and said that “I had stopped his rath, Nitish is flagging it off.” Laloo may be a much reduced force in Bihar, yet Nitish would certainly not leave any opportunity for the man who overshadowed him for two decades till he was finally defeated in 2005.

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It’s a complicated terrain that Nitish negotiates, trying to balance state and national realities. What does this mean in terms of which BJP leader is acceptable to the man from Bihar? A JD(U) insider believes that the strategy actually is to play on the confusion within the BJP. According to one calculation, the Modi momentum could run out by the end of November-December. Within the BJP itself, Shivraj Chauhan could win a third term in Madhya Pradesh, Vasundhararaje could return to power in Rajasthan and Raman Singh could retain it in Chhattisgarh. “These people,” says a BJP MP from Bihar, “are not going to credit Modi for their victories. So he will be looking to make a mark in UP and Bihar and all this talk of development will give way to him playing the Hindutva hardline which too will land him in trouble as far as all-India acceptability is concerned.”

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Centre stage Bihar core committee members meet central leadership. (Photograph by Jitender Gupta)

Nitish is believed to have privately told people that a third or fourth front cannot work and alliances will have to be for­med around the two major national parties. What would suit him politically, though, is the inversion of the classic NDA model. This would mean letting Modi thunder along till it becomes clear to the BJP it’s unworkable and then hope for the contradictions within the BJP to compel them to actually let the tail wag the dog. They would then possibly project Nitish as the NDA face at the national level as well. Alt­ernatively, there is the Congress or the Third Front option. Regional players have multiple choices.

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If Nitish is grappling with contradictions, the Gujarat chief minister has a fair share of them as well. The Gujarat government’s decision last week to seek death penalty for the 10 individuals convicted for the Naroda Patiya massacre, in which 97 Muslims were killed during the 2002 riots, cannot be ignored. It appears to be a case of the Modi regime allowing those who have become a liability to hang.

But while Modi may offer this as part of a cleansing ritual, not many are being taken in. The process appears highly selective, given that Modi has protec­ted his right-hand man Amit Shah to the hilt, and he has even been made general secretary in the national BJP.

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The move has also alienated many in the larger ideological parivar. They are seeing it as a case of Modi crushing the footsoldiers while projecting himself as the PM candidate. Says a BJP office-holder bluntly, “This is not a wise Brahminical decision. But then Modi is not a Brahmin. It is a stupid decision that will only increase the fear and dislike of Modi within the RSS, VHP, and increase the bitterness inside Gujarat where the entire establishment was part of what happened but where now some are trapped, others are busy trying to become prime minister.”

So, if Modi has a huge fan following, he has an equal number of enemies too. Those from the minority community can do nothing more than vote against him. However, it’s the enemies within Modi’s own ideological family who are lying in wait. Nitish believes they will ultimately trip up the man with the big ego and great ambition.

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