After having dealt a blow to the Janata Dal United-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine in the Bihar Legislative Council elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is awaiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give the big push to its campaign for the crucial Assembly elections scheduled sometime in October-November.
While the ruling JDU and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar have dismissed the defeat in the Legislative Council elections of 24 seats where the Janata Parivar and its allies won only 10 seats while the NDA bagged 13, they claimed that Assembly elections would be the real test for the two bitter rivals.
JDU-RJD alliance has already projected Nitish Kumar as its chief ministerial candidate while the NDA has so far decided to not go to the battle with a face and instead rely on Narendra Modi's charisma that saw that BJP-led outfit emerging victorious in 31 out of the 40 seat in the state in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
With such a strong electoral performance one and a half year ago, BJP has set its eyes on winning a massive 185 of the 243 seats in Bihar Assembly on its own. Yet, in the last few weeks one of the BJP's major headaches has been its allies demanding seats disproportionate to their strength in the state putting the party's plan of winning Bihar in jeopardy.
Some constituents of the NDA have also given hints that they would not shy away from claiming the chief minister's chair despite BJP being the largest party. Rashtriya Lok Samata Party has already passed a resolution announcing Union Minister of State Human Resource Development Upendra Kushwaha as the chief ministerial candidate for Bihar elections much to the consternation of BJP leaders and other NDA partners.
With former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi also throwing his weight behind the NDA and vowing to throw Nitish Kumar out of power the BJP will have to deal with one more ambitious ally along with Lok Janshakti Party supremo and Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan.
Paswan, always on the lookout for more power, has publically declared that he is not in the race for the chief ministership but if the elections throw up a verdict where the BJP is not is a position to form the government easily, then he in all probability will demand his pound of flesh.
Kushwaha's RLSP has demanded 67 seats while LJP of Paswan is keen on 74 seats. Manjhi's Hindutani Awam Morcha is yet to come out with a demand but there are enough indications that the former Bihar CM will also bargain for a good chunk of seats although his vote catching capabilities are still a suspect.
Manjhi is seen as a “vote katuwa” (who can cut into the vote bank of rivals) and BJP leaders plan to use him for the same to hurt the JDU-RJD alliance. His entry into the NDA fold has riled Paswan who was till now claiming to be the tallest Dalit leader in Bihar.
With Manjhi, who belongs to the Mushahar community, also projecting himself as a Dalit leader, Paswan is seeing red. The LJP leader had targeted several close associates of Manjhi recently including former Bihar agriculture minister Narendra Singh. Singh's two MLA sons and two other HAM leaders were also in Paswan's firing line. Paswan has held a grouse against Singh since November 2005 when the latter broke away from the LJP along with 18 MLAs to join JDU. He was later rewarded with a ministerial berth by Nitish Kumar.
Senior LJP leaders have indicated that they would not shy away from putting up candidates against these HAM leaders if they contest elections. Even Manjhi is not very keen on playing second fiddle to Paswan and is planning to put candidates in as many seats as possible to keep the LJP leader in check. A close associate of Manjhi told IBNLive that HAM may not shy away for charting an independent course if the party fails to get a decent number of seats to contest. Although he did not clarify on the number of seats HAM is looking to contest but added that the party is eyeing more than 20.
The RLSP, too, is witnessing an internal feud with its chief Upendra Kushwaha and Jahanabad MP Arun Kumar speaking in two different voices on several issues.
While Upendra Kushwaha got the RLSP to pass a resolution which was also backed by Arun Kumar to name him as the NDA CM candidate but in the last few days the latter has indicated that he may not back his party boss for the post. Arun Kumar even made a statement "batasha ke liye mandir nahin torenge". The comment is seen as developing a soft approach towards seat sharing for Bihar election unlike Kushwaha who is keen to drive a hard bargain.
Their difference also has its genesis in the caste calculations with Kushwaha, a Koeri, trying to become the torchbearer of backward castes and Arun Kumar, a Bhumihar, fighting for the forward castes.
Even BJP leaders say that Kuhswaha's claims being the undisputed Koeri leader has no basis as a majority of the community is still with Nitish Kumar.
None of the prominent Bihar BJP leaders like Sushil Kumar Modi, Nand Kishore Yadav, Prem Kumar, Radha Mohan Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Giriraj Singh, Rajiv Pratap Singh Rudy and Shah Nawaz Hussain have recently given any hint of being in the race but some of them are harbouring the dream with their supporters already running a campaign in their favour.
Radha Mohan Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Giriraj Singh and Rajiv Pratap Singh Rudy are ministers in the Narendra Modi government and may not be inclined to go back to Bihar to head a government which would require not only dealing with demanding allies on a day to day basis but also call for better administrative skills.
With just a few months for elections, NDA and in particular BJP has not been able to come up with a leader to match Nitish Kumar who enjoys a clean image and is credited with turning turned around Bihar. The opposition is targeting him for allying with RJD chief Lalu Prasad who was his bitter rival for almost two decades and claimed that the JDU-RJD alliance will bring back "jungle raj 2" in the state.
State BJP leaders also not united on one face for Bihar elections and the battle will once again be led by the Prime Minister along with party president Amit Shah. But the momentum of Lok Sabha elections, already encountering a rough weather with the coming together of Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad, may be permanently lost if BJP is unable to force its allies to sink their differences and set their own houses in order.
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