With Muslim-Yadav combination intact, BJP works on consolidation of ‘own’; PM to address thirteen rallies in remaining three phases.
New Delhi : Mid-way into the assembly polls in Bihar, the BJP top leadership has admitted that the Muslim-Yadav combination of Lalu Prasad is largely intact. With little indication of any dent in this formidable vote bank, the BJP strategy now is to focus on the Upper Caste-EBC segments while counting on allies like Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi to bring in Dalit-Mahadalit votes. The party had made several strategic moves to make inroads into the Yadavs, especially the Yadav youths. The BJP also fielded 22 Yadav candidates to buttress the effort.
With two phases of polling over in the five-phase long Bihar elections, the BJP top brass is now taking stock of the situation in the do-or-die battle. The campaign would now be somewhat on a lull with the next phase of polling scheduled only after the Dussehra. The party leaders, including president Amit Shah, have also found time to take a much-needed break and catch up with their families. According to top sources, the ground situation has not indicated any dent in the Yadav votes which the BJP strategists were banking upon.
As a result, the party has decided not to waste its efforts in that direction and concentrate on those castes which have indicated preference for the saffron party. ‘I have never based my strategy on dividing the vote bank of rivals. My strategy has always been to consolidate what is our ‘own’, claimed a top line party leader. ‘However, we have reports about Yadavs voting for us but due to obvious reasons you cannot expect them to say it aloud’, the leader added.
Denying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rallies had been cut short because of negative feedback, the party leadership claimed his schedule would remain unchanged till the end. ‘If you remember we had informed that Modiji would address 20 rallies but he is actually addressing 22. So where is the question of reduction? The PM is scheduled to address four rallies each in the third and fourth phases and five in the fifth phase. The JD(U) top leadership and chief minister Nitish Kumar have been attacking PM Modi for the last couple of days saying the latter’s rallies are being called off because the party wants to insulate Modi from the responsibility of a poor show in Bihar.
Two phases down the line, the BJP’s latest argument is while it’s a toughly contested battle, the fight would have been worse if Nitish fought on his own. ‘If Nitish Kumar did not join hands with Lalu, we would be heading for a hung assembly’, the top leader argued. Brand Nitish would have worked then and we would have lost the slogan of Jungle raj which is our strongest issue, he claimed. The party’s internal assessment of the first two phases is BJP would bag anywhere between 28-32 seats in the first phase and 20-24 in the second with 2-3 ‘others’ winning in each phase.
