NEW DELHI:It’s Parivartan versus Swabhiman. The names of the Bihar rallies chosen by the two sides provide the text of the contest.
The ‘change’ the NDA camp is promising is a multi-crore rupees package deal unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Stung by it, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s ‘grand alliance’ JD(U)-RJD-Congress-NCP is scheduled to assert Bihar’s ‘self-respect’ in a rally on August 30.
But can the alliance grandly showcase itself? Congress president Sonia Gandhi—and not her son and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi—has been invited to share the stage with Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav. But will she agree to make Rahul’s role secondary to hers? Or will Sharad Pawar, who has made it known that Rahul is still on the learning curve, participate? No one is quite sure. “No decision yet. The Congress president will take the call herself, we’ll be informed,’’ says Rahul-acolyte C P Joshi, AICC in-charge of Bihar. This is his way of admitting that the party is in the dark.
Sonia had taken the lead during the Parliament protests after 25 of her party MPs were suspended by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. But her presence at the protest had ensured the leaders of other parties lent support or joined in full measure.
Going by the same logic, Sonia may participate in the Swabhiman rally. She has shared the stage with Lalu Yadav in earlier Assembly elections, but the equations then were different. Congress now is seen as the junior partner in the alliance, out of power at the Centre, in no position to set the agenda. The pros and cons of her ‘guest appearance’ at the Swabhiman rally, thus remains in the realm of conjecture.
But it would have its own optics. NCP heavyweight Sharad Pawar and his associate Tariq Anwar, once a prominent Congress leader from the state, may consider joining in. Creases in the alliance have appeared: NCP is upset over the three seats allotted to it and wants an enhancement. “Nitishji should accommodate them from JD-U (kitty). But to avoid bitterness, every side may shed a seat or two,’’ sources in the negotiations said. It is unlikely RJD’s second rung, which feels it should have been compensated with more than 100 seats, will agree.
For the Congress, it’s no less complicated. If Sonia agrees to put in an appearance, it would make Rahul’s position nebulous. More than the 40 seats, the Bihar polls could be the stage where Rahul gains larger acceptance from “like-minded’’ parties. “They may be there together or Rahul may just focus on the party campaign. Unless the roles are defined, a decision cannot be taken,’’ a senior Congress leader said, adding that his party has put up posters in Bihar projecting Nitish as the leader of alliance, Lalu as the weight behind it and the Congress as the ‘helping hand’.
The point of contention is the Bihar CM’s sudden bonhomie with his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal. Kumar’s attempt to project Kejriwal as “the person’’ who can take on Modi has not gone down well with the Congress leadership. Deemed quite counter-productive for Rahul, it has now to choose between the party’s swabhiman and its alliance partner’s.