24/12/2013

 

Ekla chalo re unsafe in 21st century Bihar politics


Patna,(BiharTimes): The release of the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has not only alarmed the Janata Dal (United) but has also compelled the state unit of the BJP to redraw its strategy and not take things lightly.

Perhaps this was the reason why the party sought another pre-election trip of its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, to Bihar. Though it is cold and foggy and planes are finding it difficult to land at the Patna airport the party leaders in Bihar want Modi to address several rallies in the state in January. It needs to be mentioned that when Modi arrived on November 2 to console the family-members of five of those killed in Hunkar rally day blasts he could not go to two places because of the inclement weather.

Even former party president Natin Gadkari could not come to Patna to attend an important pre-election party meeting on December 23 because his plane could not come due to poor visibility at Patna airport.
In spite of this chilly weather the saffron party wants to keep the pot boiling as after the coming out of Lalu Prasad Yadav the political scenario has changed a lot.

Unlike 2009, Lalu appears quite serious in having alliance with the Congress and LJP, if not the Left parties too. He has learnt a bitter lesson in the last four and a half years and paid the price for the failure of seat-sharing arrangement in 2009.

In contrast it is now the BJP and Janata Dal (United), which would be contesting the election separately. So by that logic Lalu-led secular alliance has an edge.

The problem with the BJP is that apart from Narendra Modi it has nothing to highlight to brighten the poll prospect. By over-criticising the Nitish regime the party is not doing a great service to itself as it was in power for over seven and a half years.

Its leaders can pat on its back for the “good performance” of its 11 ministers but who can deny the fact that be it the Rupam Pathak case, the Forbesganj police firing, the killing of his employee by party MLC, Ashok Agrawal, last year’s Chhath tragedy in Patna and chaos in various medical college hospitals it is the BJP leaders and ministers who are equally, if not more, responsible.

The people of Patna are well aware as to how a bold SSP of Patna was transferred within hours after he carried out raids on a firm producing fake cosmetic goods. The SSP paid the price for touching a man too close to one of the most powerful BJP leaders of the state.

The party leaders can now shout from the house top that Nitish Kumar was involved in the fodder scam, but nobody is taking them seriously. The counter question they are asking is: if it was really so why they groomed, promoted and financed this man to reach such a high position.

The fact is that BJP is finding it extremely difficult to explain its position. Had its 11 ministers quit the cabinet even a day earlier, that is on June 15 last, citing the example of Nitish’s misrule they would have made an impact. Instead Nitish kicked them out of the cabinet on June 16 and it is only then that they had started finding all the fault with the chief minister.

In such a messy situation the Bihar BJP––which was divided on pro- and anti-Nitish lines till June last––has now been left with no option but to throw the entire lot behind Narendra Modi.

But as Lalu and Rabri are drawing big crowd and media giving much more coverage to the RJD the BJP as well as JD(U) both are a bit worried. The saffron party is well aware that in spite of the full might of the Ram Temple movement in 1990s and presence of towering personality like Lal Krishna Advani it could not influence the voters in Bihar much and Lalu continued to do well in all the elections. It was only when the saffron party joined hands with Nitish, who was earlier with Lalu Prasad, that it could succeed in getting rid of Lalu-Rabri raj. Now that the BJP has once again been left alone and JD(U) drifted to a different path Lalu-led alliance may really create problem for both the former friends.

Lalu, on his part, knows that he can not afford to repeat the mistake made in 2009 and wants to team up with the Congress as well as LJP.

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