The Janata Parivar, launched with much fanfare with its first challenge being to combat the BJP in the Bihar assembly elections has come a cropper with its founder-president, Mulayam Singh Yadav, announcing that his Samajwadi Party would go alone in Bihar. Though the Samajwadis do not hold a single seat in the Bihar assembly, the psychological effect of Mulayam’s distancing himself from state chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (U) and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal would be considerable. Electorally speaking, the Samajwadi party does not have a base in the state. With its focus on the Yadav-Muslim vote bank, the SP shares its ideological pinnings with the JD (U). The rupture in the “mahagatbandhan” is seemingly a boon for the BJP which was reeling under the impact of the grand alliance. Coming close on the heels of the Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP’s) snapping of links with the Janata Parivar for being offered a raw deal in the seat-sharing exercise, the break with SP exposes the chinks in the anti-BJP front’s armour. All-out efforts are still on to woo back SP into the Janata Parivar but while it seems unlikely that Mulayam would come round, even if he relents the credibility of the alliance would not be the same again.
The Samajwadi Party gave vent to its sense of hurt when its general secretary, Ram Gopal Yadav, declared publicly that they felt humiliated by Lalu Yadav unilaterally allotting them a mere five seats for the impending elections out of a total of 243 seats in the Assembly. The fact that the Samajwadi Party was kept out of the process of consultation on seat allocations angered the party top brass a great deal. The Samajwadi Party has also nursed a grouse about the importance given to the Congress and to Mrs Sonia Gandhi in the scheme of things in Bihar. Mulayam Singh Yadav has had a blow hot and cold relationship with Sonia. Eyebrows were raised when he had stayed away from the Iftar dinner hosted by her on the eve of the last Parliament session. While Nitish was an enthusiastic participant, Lalu had kept away but had deputed his emissary. It had also been noticed that both Nitish and Lalu wooed and feted Sonia Gandhi at the recent ‘Swabhimaan’ rally which was a show of force from which too Mulayam had kept away, though he deputed his brother and party leader Shivpal Singh Yadav halfheartedly. Ominously, Mulayam has conspicuously desisted from criticising the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in recent days, giving rise to speculation that an informal understanding could be on the cards between them when elections are held in Uttar Pradesh.
The Bihar voter is shrewd enough to realise that the tie-up between Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar is a marriage of convenience necessitated by the elections. The two leaders despise each other if one goes by the sharp attacks that they were known for before they entered into an alliance. How long their bloated egos would not play up against each other is anybody’s guess. The people are also acutely aware that Lalu who was convicted in a corruption case and is out on bail cannot contest elections and hold public office and will sooner than later have to return to jail till he serves out his sentence of five years. The BJP too is not without its share of problems. Its main ally, the Lok Janshakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan is demanding its pound of flesh in terms of seat allocations for supporting the BJP. It is also unreconciled to the BJP wanting to allot some seats to contest to the supporters of former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi. At the same time, another BJP ally RLSP has decided to project its party chief and union minister Upendra Kushwaha as chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Bihar polls. However, these problems are not insurmountable. While the BJP has pitted its development promises against the caste politics played by Lalu and to an extent Nitish Kumar, there is a new dimension that has been added to the battle for Bihar by the likely entry into the electoral arena of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen led by Asauddin Owaisi which is making a bid to reach out to Muslims outside his Andhra base. While the BJP is chuckling with glee at Owaisi’s foray into Bihar and its likely negative impact on ‘secular’ parties like RJD, JD (U) and the Congress which assiduously woo the State’s 17 per cent Muslims, these parties are fearing a sharp division in the minority votes.
Refuting the charge that his contesting some seats in Bihar will benefit the BJP, Owaisi said in a recent interview that the secular parties cannot blame me for their shortcomings, incompetence and lack of credibility. There is still some time for the Bihar elections and there will predictably be moves and counter-moves by all players in the run-up to the polls. The final outcome will indeed have huge repercussions.
