Bihar will elect a new Assembly in September-October 2015. The battle promises to be a hard fought one with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance on one side and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United along with Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad on the other side.
Ever since the breakup with BJP in 2013, Nitish Kumar has been pushed into a corner and has been trying, till now unsuccessfully, to merge or have an alliance with RJD.
With on paper a JDU-RJD alliance along with the Congress looks a very formidable combination but the bitter squabbling between Nitish Kumar's outfit and Lalu's party don’t project a very positive picture. The BJP is very confident that its superlative show in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections will continue and the party along with its partners in the state will form the next government.
IBNLive caught up with Bihar BJP leader Raghav Sharan Pandey, who is also a special invitee to the party’s National Executive, to talk about the part’s strategy and prospects in the Assembly elections. Pandey, a former IAS officer, has been working in his home district of Paschim Champaran in Bihar and claimed that voters in the state have no strong and viable alternative to the BJP.
Below is the full transcript of the interview:
IBNLive: How do you see the elections in Bihar and the status of BJP right now?
RS Pandey: Well, BJP is clearly ahead of others and BJP will win very comfortably, there is no doubt.
IBNLive: BJP has come out with a plan of 185+ seats that seems too ambitious if you take into consideration that the party has also given hints that it would like former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi to join the alliance. So do you believe that BJP alone will cross or reach the 185-seat mark or will it need the alliance as a whole?
RS Pandey: Well, precise position you will know only when elections come closer and when the different combinations really take shape but as of today BJP is well set. It is doing its exercise so as to reach its target, which is making a comfortable government of its own.
IBNLive: So the BJP is sure of winning the majority on its own?
RS Pandey: It should be able to.
IBNLive: How much weightage will you give to your alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan and Upendra Kushwaha?
RS Pandey: Yes, they are well valued partners and they will continue to be in the NDA. NDA should fight the election as NDA. But then BJP has a status within NDA, everybody knows it. This has been very clear at the time of national elections and similar will be the situation in Bihar.
IBNLive: In Maharashtra elections BJP's alliance with Shiv Sena broke and the party went alone. Do we see that kind of scenario being repeated in Bihar if your alliance partners demand a large number of seats which the BJP is not comfortable with?
RS Pandey: I don’t think that scenario is going to be repeated. Yes, all parties will like to maximise their seats because there are many candidates who would like to get tickets but I think it should be ultimately resolved amicably and there should be no difficulty.
IBNLive: Till last Lok Sabha elections BJP always had this strategy of naming the leader, either the chief ministerial or the prime ministerial candidate but after the last general elections that strategy is no longer in use. You have gone into elections without any face. Do you see the same strategy in Bihar where there are several prominent leaders who would like to be the chief ministerial candidate?
RS Pandey: Well, BJP is a national party. Narendra Modi is the national face, the biggest face in the BJP and the elections the way it has been fought in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana have given good results. I don’t see any reason why the same practice should not be repeated in Bihar.
IBNLive: In the last elections in Jharkhand BJP won 37 seats on its own whereas during the Lok Sabha elections the party was leading in 56 assembly segments. So there was a drop in the number of seats that the party could win and managed to cross the halfway mark only with an alliance partner and is that scenario likely to be replicated in Bihar? Do you foresee it?
RS Pandey: You can't predict election results 100%, but we all will try to see that our seats are maximised. Lok Sabha, of course, it very a spectacular performance but if you look at it from the voters' perspective, who can match BJP’s performance? If you as a voter want to cast your votes do you see any alternative to BJP? The people who are in the other group, they can't even form an alliance. So how can they really form a stable government? Well, this is the question. So who would not like a good government post election in future, a promise for their future? There are too many problems for the people and if you look at the totality of the situation there is no party which can even match BJP, forget about excelling over BJP. So that is the plus point with the BJP and the party should win comfortably.
IBNLive: So is the BJP likely to bring Manjhi into NDA’s fold?
RS Pandey: Well, Mr Manjhi does have some people with him. A section of Dalits certainly feel upset after the way he lost power in Bihar. So that group and a good number is with him. Wherever he goes, it will add to that group’s strength but it is for Mr. Manjhi to decide.
IBNLive: Will not bringing him lead to tensions with Ram Vilas Paswan? Both of them have almost the same vote bank.
RS Pandey: Well, let us see what happens. As the news goes he has met seniors from BJP. He has to decide his own course of actions and his followers are a subset of the Dalit community. Mr Paswan also remains a very tall leader. So let us see how it happens.
IBNLive: Monsoon this year has been predicted to be very poor. Bihar is an agrarian state so if there is a failure of monsoon rural distress will certainly rise. Will it not hit the party in the long runup to elections?
RS Pandey: Well, if monsoon is good or monsoon is bad, does the government contribute to it? It is a natural phenomena, but yes the government has to be aware and the government it is aware. You heard the news conference of the Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh who is also from Bihar. So government has taken cognisance as to how to mitigate the sufferings. Deficient monsoon is going to be bad for agriculture and bad for the economy but then measures will have to be taken and will be taken so that inflation is kept under control and to the extent possible the ill-effects of bad monsoon are taken care of.
IBNLive: Right now how is the BJP looking at the elections? Does it want a three-cornered fight or is it comfortable fighting against Lalu and Nitish contesting as one.
RS Pandey: Everyone knows if the opposition votes are split, it will be good for any party but that whether they will come together, whether they will combine, earlier there was going to be mahavilay (mega merger), now that we all know that it has fizzled out. Then there is talk of gathbandhan, mahagathbandhan (alliance) that also one doesn’t know. Every day you hear the leaders are quarrelling among themselves - who will be the chief minister and the two big personalities in the other camp, they have been accusing each other. They are trying to come together but on what principles? Is it a principled combination, is it not a negative combination? Is it not only for the sake of ousting BJP? The people will look at all of this. If they combine on the basis of principle, on the basis of giving good governance in Bihar, that’s a different matter but here the sole intention of combining is against a particular party, against BJP and that will not work. You should go to the people with a positive agenda. BJP went to the polls in 2014 with a positive agenda, change for the government. Change in the government should lead to better prospects, it changed India. Now, are they (Lalu and Nitish) going with that kind of manifesto? Their only ambition seems to be to oust BJP and get into positions of power and it is only power which is making this possible is happening. So the BJP scores over them with the promise that it holds for the future of Bihar, the people of Bihar and that is a plus point for the BJP.
IBNLive: BJP was also in power for almost 7 years in alliance with Nitish Kumar. So will that not hurt the party? BJP leaders who were ministers in Bihar government will go to the voters and tell them that no work has been done in the past 5-6 years. Will it not hurt their image also?
RS Pandey: When BJP and JDU were together in power everyone was praising Bihar. Once BJP and JDU went apart, what has been the track record of the JDU government in Bihar? That is a point to ponder and if you look at that track record, well it is very dismal. Today what is happening in Bihar, the law and order front, the succour given to farmers, look at any indicator of development. Bihar has slipped back from the time BJP and JDU were together. So, that also gives advantage to BJP because people have looked at BJP’s performance. People will look at BJP’s promise in future and they will take a call. The JDU is going to combine with RJD, and RJD's track record of governance that everybody knows. That is what BJP leaders keep calling jungle raj-2. RJD rule was knows as jungle raj and Laluji remains a tall personality in that combination and if that combination wins then it will be a repetition of jungle raj. Now, do you think people will vote for another kind of jungle raj?
IBNLive: So who do you see as the bigger rival - Nitish Kumar or Lalu Prasad?
RS Pandey: Well, everyone who contests against BJP is a rival. Therefore, both of them are rivals.
IBNLive: But the bigger threat? Nitish Kumar still enjoys a very clean image, no one accuses him of any personal wrongdoing?
RS Pandey: Castewise vote bank everyone knows Laluji has more votes with him than anyone else in that combination.
IBNLive: Any chance of joining hands with Nitish Kumar again?
RS Pandey: I don’t think so because BJP leaders have made it very clear. Even recently it came very prominently in the news that this is not going to happen.
IBNLive: In the recent Delhi elections although the BJP brought out its top guns it lost very badly. There was a strategy in Delhi elections to bring Kiran Bedi from outside and project her as the CM candidate which did not work. So do you see that kind of scenario in Bihar, will someone who is already part of the state party be projected as the face?
RS Pandey: Well, no body is coming from outside there. BJP leaders in Bihar are very capable, very hardworking, very promising. Their track record has been good. So I don’t think there is any confusion on that count. BJP is working as per a laid out strategy. They are analysing their own strengths, their own weaknesses, looking at constituency wise list, they will field good candidate. They also know the strengths and weaknesses of the people who are opposing them. BJP is a grassroots party, it has strength in the people and looking at the way they are working. No doubt we will come out triumphant in the elections.
IBNLive: You have been a bureaucrat. Why did you join politics, why not lead a retired quiet life?
RS Pandey: As long as you have the strength in you, you should utilise it. After I retired I was associated with my home district with the people at the grassroots. I have been associated with a lot of developmental and social work there, so people wanted me to join this and I thought this is also a good opportunity. Well as a bureaucrat you serve the nation, as a politician you serve the nation and what matters is the kind of intention that you have of doing something good for the society and I think I have taken the right decision.
IBNLive: Which has been tougher - being a bureaucrat or a politician?
RS Pandey: Everywhere there are challenges but I joined bureaucracy at a very young age. I did my best and in this I am there only for the last few years so that way there is a difference. But I think you take on any assignment in any profession, put your heart into it and do with the best of intentions and move ahead .That is what life is all about.
IBNLive: So why BJP and why not any other party?
RS Pandey: Well, I was not in any party till I was in government service true to the norms of civil services. But after I left what was the choice? BJP was the only national alternative. The Congress was in a state of steady decline and at that time BJP offered me an opportunity to join, and I joined.
IBNLive: Will you contest elections?
RS Pandey: Well let the time come. The party will decide.
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