Patna,(BiharTimes): Though the Union minister of state for rural development, Upendra Kushwaha, attributed the bad performance of the BJP-led alliance in the recently held by-polls for 10 seats to the non-inclusion of any Bhumihar MP from Bihar in the Narendra Modi cabinet it is the outburst of the national vice president of the BJP and former Union minister (in the Vajpayee cabinet), Dr C P Thakur, that he is being treated like a ‘chaprasi’ in the party, which has shocked the leadership.
That two of the six candidates who won on the JD(U)-RJD-Congress tickets are Bhumihars, the results indicate that the voters belonging to this caste voted tactfully. These two candidate won by a big margin.
R N Singh of Janata Dal (United) won from Parbatta by over 56,000 votes while Ajit Sharma of Congress bagged Bhagalpur seat from the BJP by over 17,000 votes. Barring once in 1985 the Bhagalpur Assembly seat has always been in the hands of the BJP or erstwhile Bharatiya Jan Sangh since 1967. The Congress won the seat this time notwithstanding a big upper caste and Bania votes.
It suggests that the upper castes,. especially Bhumihars, were not averse to giving votes to the grand alliance notwithstanding the rhetoric of the Mandal.
Bhumihars are certainly upset over the way they have been ignored by the BJP––and that too at the cost of Rajputs, who were preferred during the ticket distribution and cabinet formation. One Bhumihar who has been inducted into the cabinet is a minister of state for railways and that too from East UP and not Bihar. So if the Bhumihars have reacted to this attitude of the BJP it may not be surprising.
In 2009 by-elections too the NDA had to pay the price of the indifference shown by farming castes, especially Bhumihars and Rajputs.. In the by-election held for 18 seats the RJD-LJP combine won nine, while the JD(U)-BJP together could bag only five while rest went to others. But the NDA managed to fight back and won the crucial Bhumihar support in the 2010 Assembly election.
This happened simply because of one important factor. After the victory in 2009 Lok Sabha election in which the NDA won 32 out of 40 seats––better than this time––the then Nitish Kumar government tabled the Bandopadhyaya Commission report on empowering share-croppers in the Monsoon Session of the state Assembly (in July 2009). The agrarian communities, especially the more aggressive Bhumihars as well as Rajputs, reacted sharply. Two months later when the by-polls for 18 seats were held in September 2009 the NDA had to pay dearly.
The farming communities did not stop there. In May 2010 they organized a big Kisan Mahapanchayat in Patna’s Gandhi Maidan forcing the state government to abandon any idea of implementing the Commission’s report. It was only after this rally that these castes, in particular Bhumihars, who are known for aggressive voting, returned to the NDA fold and ensured the unprecedented victory.
This victory took place notwithstanding a serious crisis which erupted within the NDA when on June 12, 2010 Nitish cancelled the dinner to Narendra Modi and other BJP bigwigs and on June 19, 2010 return Rs five crore donated by the Gujarat government to the CM Relief Fund after the Kosi flood of 2008.