Bihar elections: PM Modi to remain face of NDA, but allies and local unit given key roles

NEW DELHI: BJP is trying to strike a delicate balance between seeking to encash PM Narendra Modi’s popular appeal and projecting its alliance partners Ram Vilas Paswan, Upendra Kushwaha and Jitan Ram Manjhi in order to capitalise on its far more organised campaign than that of the rival grand alliance.

Although the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance got its act together much earlier than its rivals and managed to make greater inroads into the state, it has lagged the grand alliance in declaring its seatsharing formula.

The BJP leadership seems reluctant to cede unnecessary ground to its alliance partners, believing as it does that the NDA’s votes are dependent on Modi’s appeal. However, the party does appreciate that Paswan, Kushwaha and Manjhi provide a much-needed veneer of social inclusiveness for the BJP, which is otherwise considered a party with upper caste support base.

In Bihar, where caste considerations continue to play an important role in elections, the BJP cannot afford to be seen as treating leaders from the other castes unfairly.

If it does manage to divided seats to the satisfaction of all partners, it can hope to work its well-organised campaign to its advantage, given the contradictions inherent in the grand alliance, where CM Nitish Kumar is asking for votes on the basis of work that set him apart from his long-time rival and now partner, RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

A DEFEAT & A WAKE-UP CALL

A disastrous defeat in Delhi assembly elections in February this year served as a warning signal that BJP took in right earnest. The party’s general secretary in charge of Bihar Bhupender Yadav seems to have taken steps to always consult with the local unit and not impose things from the top. He got the party’s mandal unit chiefs in each assembly segment to jointly prepare a list of local issues.

The list is now available with the party’s leadership in the state as well as in Delhi to fine-tune its campaign and candidate strategies. It also divided the state into four zones for efficient election management and deployed full-time activists with RSS background, drawn from states including MP, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand in each assembly segment to provide impartial feedback.

The BJP also upset Nitish’s carefully crafted social engineering of Mahadalits by wading into the Nitish Kumar-Jitan Ram Manjhi tussle. By June, when Manjhi joined the NDA after resigning from the JD (U) and floating his Hindustani Awami Morcha party, the BJP had succeeded in leveraging his clash with the CM to prop him up as a state-wide leader of Musahar community of Mahadalits and strengthen the NDA’s presence among the marginalised sections. Even as it worked on Manjhi to woo the Mahadalits, the BJP did not lose sight of its organisation.

BJP president galvanised the party as early as April when Yadav got the state unit to organise a meeting of the party’s booth-level workers in Patna on April 14, the birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar.

Party managers claim that the BJP held rallies in each of the 243 assembly segments between May and June. “I want to tell Laluji. Zero plus zero is zero. No matter what alliance you form, nothing is going to happen,” Shah said, signalling to the workers to campaign against the combined might of Nitish and Lalu. “Whether it’s ‘mahagathbandhan’ (grand alliance) or ‘mahavilay’ (grand merger) nobody can stop BJP from coming to power in Bihar...,” he said.