Delhi over, the Bihar chapter has been opened with litti chokha. Not in Patna but in Delhi. No one does it quite like Narendra Modi, tweeted a colleague. True, that. One would have thought the prime minister is busy as a bee with the Trump visit (and a few other pressing national issues.) But a quick trip to an artisanal fair at Rajpath, just a stone’s throw away from the PMO, could hardly be a distraction. The messaging was precise and fully loaded, like the plate. And #KhemChoTrump and those harrowing trade deals, with a few concessions thrown in to please the Big Boy, can be left to the experts. Not election campaigning. Not even to Amit Shah. (Trump too, if those terrible cynical political analysts are to be believed, may be using the India visit for voter eyeballs back home.)
Two consecutive defeats, Jharkhand and Delhi, so Modi is clearly taking no chances. Well, a Bihari was the BJP’s projected CM face in Delhi, but out there, Nitish Kumar is the only one who looks chief ministerial, even if he heads what is now a moth-eaten outfit. So the BJP-JD(U)—it’s in that order, never mind the CM—has declared they will go with his face. The underlying slogan being 15 years of Lalu vs 15 years of Nitish. The man needs propping. His caste base, the Kurmis, is rather small in number. On the other hand, the Yadav brotherhood may be big and muscular, but has no one who looks chief ministerial. Lalu Prasad Yadav is still in jail.
If the RJD had been less dynastic in behaviour, the mercurial Raghuvansh Prasad could have been one: he’s the man who single-handedly rolled out the historic NREGA during UPA-I. But then, Prasad is a Rajput, and the Yadav brotherhood may not appreciate him as a boss, so he can’t win an election for the RJD. That leaves them little option but to bank on Lalu’s younger son, Tejaswi Yadav. Now, Tejaswi is no Kejriwal. He’s not even an Akhilesh Yadav, who has taken the trouble to mature a bit. Tejaswi can create a few anti-Nitish headlines but his arrogance and sense of entitlement makes his own party squirm in private—somewhat like Rahul Gandhi and the Congress.
That’s the skew Bihar is taking to polling. One thing that’s catching eyeballs is the huge crowds Kanhaiya Kumar is attracting. But as of now, minus some unforeseen gathbandhan, it’s more like the rapture of a folk performance, a cathartic exercise of dissent. The CPI has no cadre on the ground to translate the crowds into votes. No wonder Nitish has not tried to curb his rallies, much to the annoyance of his coalition partner.The other new oppositional pole, Prashant Kishor, is a stark contrast to Kanhaiya—a back-room strategist rather than an activist.
He was indeed given an office-bearing title in the JD(U) by Nitish, till he was thrown out. Kishor has taken a vow to create a buzz in every panchayat in Bihar against his former mentor Nitish, who he claims is a spent force and Bihar needs a new leader.Who? No one knows. Patna, therefore, is abuzz with speculation about who he’s working for, reading deep meaning into Nitish’s jibe that he had accommodated Kishor on the bidding of Shah. So, with a tangible opposition narrative yet to be woven, people are convinced the JD(U) and BJP are fighting each other through their proxies, to restrict the number of seats each can bring to the table.
As in, they are jockeying for future dominance in what they presume to be a victorious coalition.
A win, despite anti-incumbency, upper-caste angst, an angry liquor mafia, and at least four districts getting restive against Nitish for his support to CAA-NPR. The ruling partners are expected to fight 110 each of 243, leaving the rest to Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP, when the bugle blows later this year, around September-October. Talking about proxies, no one can better the Congress. It left the fight in Delhi—which it ruled for 15 years, where Sheila Dikshit at one time almost appeared prime ministerial—to Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP. (Which other party would make a PC Chacko incharge of Delhi!) The Congress is too slothful and radarless to even devise a plan that does not look like it’s gifting its vote bank to another party.
In contrast, the BJP fought a losing battle tooth-and-nail, quite literally, and retained its traditional vote bank. One can only feel sorry for the younger leaders of the GOP who still have a few decades of politics left in them, now staring at a bleak, leaderless future, taking potshots at each other and vested CWC leaders who can’t win them elections but would set the agenda.It has similarly handed over Maharashtra to a regional party that will grow at its expense. It has no recognisable face for a PCC chief, in Mumbai or outside. Milind Deora can fight Twitter wars with Ajay Maken, but can’t work the streets and slums of Mumbai like his affable father Murli Deora could do. Nor get his well-heeled friends from the Fort area to vote for him! And so, for the next round of elections, Bihar and West Bengal, the Congress is barely there. Whether Priyanka Gandhi makes it to the Rajya Sabha or not will make no difference in UP either—they may be better off paradropping her, like her brother, in the deep south. Say, Tamil Nadu. As for the sulking and defeated-looking Rahul Gandhi, he doesn’t even have time to relish a litti chokha lunch!
Santwana Bhattacharya
Resident Editor, Karnataka Email: santwana@newindianexpress.com
