The political moves and counter moves have started unfolding ahead of the Assembly elections in Bihar. I had indicated in my previous article in the Bihar Times that Shri Laloo Prasad Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) would prefer an electoral understanding with the Janata Dal (United) or JD(U), the Party of Shri Nitish Kumar. Laloo Yadav has also agreed to accept Nitish Kumar as their Chief Minister candidate. Other parties, which are not part the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) have also pledged to contest the forthcoming Bihar Assembly election on the side of the two parties and this includes the Indian National Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party of Shri Sharad Pawar and possibly the Communist Party of India (CPI). Reports have indicated that the RJD and JD(U) each would contest for 100 seats, leaving 43 seats for other parties that may find themselves on the Meanwhile, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) senior leader Dr. C P Thakur has indicated that his party would contest elections on 160 seats, leaving the 83 seats for its political partners. BJP’s political partners, as of now, may be understood to include Shri Jitan Ram Manjhi who has floated a new party by the name of Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) or HAM(S). Other parties that would be contesting elections by the side of BJP include Shri Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) of Shri Upendra Kushwaha. The BJP also appears prepared to give some space to the disgruntled RJD leader Mr. Pappu Yadav, however, this may not be in the form of open support to him.
Let me go back to the issue that I had referred to in my previous article. I am going to discuss the issue in a more focused way in this piece. I had underlined that ‘development’ could be but one of the factors that may influence the voters’ preference to one party or the other. Nitish Kumar could be a beneficiary in this regard, but not without qualifications. The larger electoral environment still could be influenced by caste configuration and how the different parties may get support of the minority community. It is in this regard that the Nitish-Laloo combine may be feeling confident that they should be able to get majority of the seats in the forthcoming elections. However, political dynamics are never that simple.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections the BJP had polled 29.86 valid votes. LJP had 6.5 per cent. The share of JD (U) and RJD was 16.04 per cent and 20.46 per cent respectively. Congress had polled 8.56 per cent of the votes. Going by this figure the major non-BJP players together had polled 45.06 per cent of the total valid votes polled. In this comparison, the BJP and its major ally in the state LJP had together polled 36.36 per cent. Now, among the non-BJP parties, as I had indicated in the previous article, RJD appears to be on the stronger wicket in comparison with other parties like JD (U) or The political parties that intend to contest the coming elections are not together out of some ideological affinity or it is not that some common principles have brought them together. For the Nitish-Laloo combine it is a pragmatic understanding that may lead them to victory in the 2015 Assembly election. Also, the parties do not appear to be looking beyond the Assembly elections.
Secondly, as the previous analyses on the subject, including the data compiled by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) have shown post the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, only 2 per cent of the Muslim population had voted for the BJP and Muslim electorates had voted for the Congress-RJD alliance. BJP, however, had got the votes of upper castes and the Dalits. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, however, close to one-fourth of the total voters in Bihar had voted for the “national interest.” It may happen that they may go back to the non-BJP parties in the Assembly elections.
In the previous elections, the BJP-JD(U) alliance had managed to get the support of majority of upper caste voters (for BJP) and sections of the backward classes (for JD(U)) together, and both the parties benefitted from this equation. Now this combination has been disturbed, and this was manifested in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. However, Shri Nitish Kumar may find some solace in winning Mr. Prashant Kishore to his side who was one of the ‘shadowy lynchpins’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
As regards the per cent of total population that the different castes and Muslims constitute in Bihar, and that has been quoted in various writings for election analyses, this includes (as approximate • Upper castes together may be up to 15 per cent of the electorate• Extreme Backward Class (EBC) group are supposed to add up to 25 per cent of the state’s population
• Yadavs, to which Laloo Prasad belongs to comprise 15-16 per cent of the population
• Kurmis, to which Shri Nitish Kumar belongs to, make up 3.7 per cent of the state’s
• Muslims constitute, approximately, 14-15 per cent of the state population
Now, two factors here are important. One, not the respective figures of different caste and communities always successfully convert themselves in to valid votes polled. Secondly, the spread of all the castes and communities are not evenly spread as per the share of their population in every constituency. Meaning, for different constituencies different combinations of caste and communities may become the winning configurations and the same configuration may not be uniformly applicable to the whole of the state. Further, all the political parties would be working along the same lines. For instance, the BJP reportedly also has a sizeable backing of the Yadavs.
Another factor that potentially can influence the outcome of the elections is the new voters that may be added to the list of electorates in every constituency. As per one study, on an average, around 32,000 new voters have added in every constituency, while the average margin of victory or defeat could be 12,000-13,000 for the last two assembly polls.
The splinter groups are also emerging and that include, in addition to Jitan Manjhis’s HAM (S), Garib Janata Dal-Secular of the estranged brother-in-law of Shri Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mr. Sadhu Yadav and pappu Yadav’s Jana Adhikar Morcha. Meanwhile, Sadhu Yadav and Pappu Yadav, both have pledged support for Shri Jitan Ram Manjhi. Merging of Samajwadi Party, RJD, JD(U), JD(S), Samajwadi Janata Party and Indian National Lok Dal to form a bigger party has not yet happened.
The role of ‘Bahubalis’ has not yet completely vanished from the Bihar’s political scene. The upcoming July 7 elections to Bihar legislative council are indications that they may be willing to chart out their own course, if the current understandings with various political parties fail. Ritlal Yadav, for instance, has filed nominations as independent candidate for the Legislative Council seat, even if he declared that he was still with RJD. Hulas Pandey now has joined the LJP after he was denied the JD(U) ticket for the seat from Ara.
Meanwhile, Upendra Kushwaha has been declared as the Chief Minister candidate by the RLSP, which is BJP’s political partner. The party has also devised a seat sharing formula and as per this formula, the RLSP would contest for 67 seats, has allotted 74 seats for the LJP, leaving 102 seats for the BJP. Under this formula, no seats were offered to Jitan Manjhi led HAM(S). BJP apparently has declined the seat sharing formula as well as Kushwaha’s candidature. There also appears to be differences between LJP and HAM(S). JD(U)-RJD-Congress combine also appear to be facing similar issues, even though Laloo Prasad Yadav had accepted Shri Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister candidate and indicated that the two parties could contest on 100 seats each. Seat sharing formula has not been publicly acknowledged by all the non-BJP parties who have rallied together for the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections. At this stage, it appears that parties have declared the support in favour of their preferred political partners, but differences continue to remain.
Now, it appears that, in all likelihood, if the non-BJP parties manage to keep the cohesion, somehow, Nitish Kumar is unlikely to have a free hand, even if he wins the elections. If the vote share per cent of previous elections and result of the recent by-poll elections are any indication, in all likelihood, among the non-BJP parties, the RJD is likely have the largest number of seats, though political outcomes may even throws surprises. This would happen even if the RJD and JD(U) each decide to contest on equal number of seats. The leaders of both the parties would be aware of this fact. As has been argued by some other analysts, this could be a factor that may influence the voting behaviour of the section in Bihar that sees Shri Laloo Prasad and Shri Nitish Kumar on two different sides, when it comes to the development issues in the state. This is based on the experience of the people of Bihar during the 15 years of Laloo Prasad’s rule between 1990 and 2005 when the development as a factor had taken a back seat. However, as a student of political science, I would underline that nothing is permanent in politics, and it depends if the Nitish-Laloo combine can sell it to the electorates that the pace of development in Bihar, at whatever stage it may be, would not suffer, if the combine is voted to power. Meanwhile, it would be interesting to see how the BJP works out its political equations. In the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, BJP-led NDA had won 31 of the 40 seats in Bihar. It would be interesting to see, which way the political outcomes of the 2015 Assembly elections go amidst the parties working out various permutations and combinations.
