It’s been just over a week since the Allahabad high court verdict in the Ayodhya title suit case. The likely impact of the judgment on different political parties in the state Assembly election — the first phase of which falls on October 21 — is clearly still an unknown. However, as I drove through the north Bihar districts of Samastipur, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur and Begusarai on the day of the verdict (September 30) and shortly after, meeting all sections of voters, the one palpable reaction to the judgment appeared to be one of relief. This was especially so with the Muslim people, although no one failed to add, “Let us see in what direction the politicians take the whole thing.”
But the Ayodhya matter is not the only reason why many in the ruling NDA alliance of Janata Dal (United) and the BJP are uncertain of the outcome of the election in spite of the ostensible personal popularity chief minister Nitish Kumar appears to enjoy fairly widely.
In the visitors’ room of his sprawling official bungalow in Patna, a BJP minister railed against the voters’ tendency to “nitpick”, saying the criticism he heard all the time of late was about the “serious power crisis”.
“Why can’t the people be satisfied with roads connecting towns that have come as such a huge relief to everyone? What a change from the Lalu era! And look at the security scene. Now even women can be out till midnight in Patna and feel absolutely safe. No more kidnappings for ransom.”
Then he added ruminatively, “Development funds have always been stolen. No government in Bihar has been an exception. But I can say truthfully, ours has been the most corrupt government ever. No exceptions.”
The minister perhaps realises he has said too much. So, he winds up with, “But we’ll come back, although with fewer MLAs maybe.” “How about a hung Assembly?” I venture. “Well, who can know the voters’ mind?” he suggests reflectively.
Talking more widely earlier, the minister conceded the unhappy sate of relations between the BJP and the JD(U), especially on the issue of Hindutva icon and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi not being allowed into the state by Mr Kumar to campaign in the elections. But he became correct and noted that handling relations with alliance partners was a matter for the party headquarters in New Delhi.
There is wide agreement on the corruption issue among politicians of all shades in Bihar, senior officials, businessmen, bankers, and members of the medical and legal professions with a wide social spectrum of clients. It is not clear, however, if this can be an election issue.
The key reason the Nitish government appears to be in political trouble is the unhappiness of the landowning sections among the upper castes- mainly the powerful Bhumihar landlords, and to an extent also the Rajputs. The upper castes have otherwise been strong votaries of the government. The class of Yadav landlords, who have emerged in the last two decades, is in any case likely to favour the chief minister’s principal rival, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav.
The chief minister had appointed the Bandopahdhya Commission to recommend tenancy (bataidari) reforms, the main feature of which was to formally record the names of tenants. But this has led to a backlash, and the recommendations appear to have been shelved.
Will the tenant sections- comprising mainly Bihar’s “mahadalits” and “ati-pichra” (most backward) castes- politically back the chief minister in his hour of need? This appears an open question.
However, two dissident JD(U) legislators, who were once very prominent, told this writer the rural poor are with Nitish because he “played the mahadalit and ati-pichra card”. A local CPI(M-L) — a party with five MLAs in the Assembly — leader of central Bihar said some rural poor could go with RJD as there were also some Yadavs among the “mazdoors” (rural proletariat).
The Congress was unlikely to draw the dalits and the very poor backward castes, he noted.
The party had been out of the picture for twenty years, and this time round it appeared the Bhumihars could give it significant backing, making the dalits turn away. In Darbhanga town, a well-to-do Muslim shopkeeper said many urban dalits could back BJP as it was a party of “poonjipati” (capitalists) and offered jobs of various kinds to poor people.
TO BE CONTINUED