The BJP is fighting to prove it has learnt its lesson from Delhi debacle and not walking into an election overconfident. It is taking care not to attack its principal adversary with such hostility that gives him publicity and the public mood turns sympathetic to him. This is what happened with Arvind Kejriwal; it is not happening with Nitish Kumar. The BJP leadership has realized that a personalized hate campaign against Nitish Kumar may not work; he remains popular.

Nitish, however, is handicapped by the fact that his new found ally—Lalu Prasad—is a polarizing figure in Bihar politics, a man whose governance record, the jungle raj, scares many people. Apart from this, Lalu’s career is on decline and he is looking to retain enough of a hold—somehow, anyhow, so as to ensure a fruitful succession for his sons and his daughter, who are in politics. In that sense, he is not interested to make Nitish chief minister or to give Bihar a new agenda. His goal is limited to maintaining a grip on a critical mass of Muslims and Yadav voters.

Nitish and Lalu have run Bihar for 25 years now. However, the social coalitions underpinning them have been very different. Lalu built a winning team around Muslims, Yadavas and sections of Dalit votes. Nitish appealed to non-Yadav, Other Backward Classes, particularly the Most Backward castes and added urban and upper caste folk. He did so with the organizational support of the BJP and Sangh network. He was at that time BJP’s ally and the Chief Minister. The contest in Bihar is not so much between the Lalu-Nitish-Congress grand alliance and the NDA. It is about who inherits the social coalition that won 2005 and 2010: The BJP or Nitish?

There are signs of rebellion in the ranks of the NDA. The deal, the BJP has given in Bihar, has upset not only allies who have got fewer seats than they wanted but also sitting BJP MLAs who have been denied tickets. The BJP is likely to deny tickets to10 to 20 per cent of its sitting MLAs to keep the candidates’ list balanced. In the first list of 43 candidates, the BJP has dropped five sitting MLAs. Two of these five, have already rebelled . They met Nitish Kumar, apparently seeking JD(U) tickets.

Among the BJP allies, LJP MP Rama Kishore Singh quit his party seats, apparently because he was sidelined from the seat-sharing talks. A key leader from Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM(S), Devendra Yadav, has already quit for “the surrender of the seat-sharing”. The BJP has kept 160 seats and given LJP 40 seats, the RLSP 23 and HAM 20. A BJP leader reacted to disgruntlement saying, “there could be more such instances as there will be many disappointed people. The BJP is keen to distribute tickets to sure winners and also wants to give representation to youth and women, which would be in line with our strategy to address aspirational politics”.

The BJP has 91sitting legislators but the party is not likely to deny tickets to any prominent leaders, though there were some disputes on one or two seats. The BJP MP who quit, Ram Kishore Singh from Vaishali, was the party’s Chief Whip in the Lok Sabha, one of the post he relinquished. Singh has reportedly played down suggestions that he will join hands with Lalu Prasad. An LJP leader said, “resigning his party position is just a symbolic protest. He may be trying to bargain with the party. we are trying to placate him but such things do happen in any party during the seat-sharing process.”

The BJP leadership continued negotiations with leaders of the RLSP, who have expressed displeasure at the BJP’s “unilateral” decision announcing 43 tickets while the talks were on. LJP leaders, who said they were shocked at the announced deal because the considerations followed differed from ally to ally, have approached BJP President Amit Shah for “rearrangement”.

LJP and RLSP leaders said they might announce their seats unilaterally like the BJP did. “Some misgivings do take place in alliance but all is well. Our common aim is to defeat the Grand Alliance”, said RLSP MP, Arun Kumar. BJP leaders said the party is unlikely to concede any seat from its share as it wants to emerge as the single largest party. The BJP calculates that Narendra Modi’s campaign from the development plank may be able to overshadow the traditional caste based politics of the state. In that event the NDA can emerge a clear winner and the BJP will then be the largest of the alliance parties.

Opinion polls have, however, so far projected the grand alliance of the JD(U)-RJD-Congress as winning more seats than the NDA. In the event of a hung assembly, the BJP wants to ensure that it still emerges the single largest party, a scenario in which it can demand the governor invite it first to form the government.(IPA Service)