A victory for Modi will be endorsement for the Sangh’s recent actions of enforcing its agenda of banning beef, launching the programme of gharwapsi a reforming education and transforming the politico-cultural contour of the secular institutions. Though the BJP and Modi have refrained from openly uttering a single word in this regard so far, the amount of energy, time, and money invested and the dynamics of the campaign point to this.

Apparently Modi is angry with the betrayal of Nitish and for teaching him the lesson he had taken upon himself the responsibility to ensure his defeat. But it would be a simplistic evaluation of his endeavours. An insight into Modi’s campaigning in Bihar would unravel this fact. Never in the past, from Nehru to Atalji, had a prime minister ever addressed 26 election meetings in one particular state. We have seen how even saffron stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee would address one or maximum two rallies in a state like Bihar, which is supposed to be quite politically sensitive. Modi claims that his electoral USP is his governance and his achievements during last 16y months. But the fact remains that he was the first political leader to openly indulge in casteism. Last month at a rally in North Bihar, he openly called upon the Jaduvanshis. yadavs to support him as he came from the home place of Hindu lord Krishna, a yadav.

After Lalu picked up his phrase and called the yadavs to defeat B JP as it was anti-yadav the BJP approached the Election Commission. Interestingly the Commission found his remark as violation of the election norms. Incidentally at a election meeting in Raghopur Lalu had described the assembly elections as a direct fight between 'the backward castes and forward castes' and gave a call to Yadavs and other backward castes to rally behind the secular alliance to defeat BJP-led NDA. Surprisingly this statement was treated against the electoral rules and an FIR was lodged against Lalu. The FIR was registered at the order of the District Magistrate of Vaishali Rachna Patil.

Since the day the BJP announced that Narendra Modi would lead the “Battle of Patna” it had become explicit that Bihar polls are crucial for the future operations and experiments of RSS. By projecting any state level leader as the chief ministerial candidate, the party would have been creating problems for the RSS agenda. It was simply with the view to showcase the victory as the endorsement of his Hindutva agenda that RSS and BJP opted for this tactics.

Eventually the state will be managed and run by the chief minister. The RSS has already decided to install its trusted swayamsevak. A Rajput by caste he has been in the fray from Rohtasd, one of the Naxalite infested districts in Bihar. RSS has already deployed a huge contingent of its cadres and swayamsevaks to ensure his districts. But this move of the RSS has not gone well with the other state BJP leaders, mostly from the backward castes. These leaders have also fielded rebel BJP candidate to cut the RSS man to size. The statement of the Union minister Giriraj Singh that no upper caste leader would be the chief minister, though coming from Sinhgan upper caste leader, ought to be seen in this perspective.

A Rockstar in the true sense Modi has never been scared of the challenges. But he was forced to take the challenge this time. Modi, the Prime Minister, is in fact batting the mahagatbandhan of socialist and social justice forces, led by Nitish Kumar who is said to possess prime ministerial material. The Sangh has pushed him to the battle ground. Modi is aware of the fact that a defeat would push him to the wall and losing his political clout and power.

The RSS is no more willing to maintain the facade of being the believer in social justice, equality and secularism. The RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat who even in 2012 had endorsed reservation for the OBC, only a fortnight back questioned its efficacy and alleged that it was being used for political gains. Close on this observation his senior colleague, the publicity chief, Manmohan Vaidya, questioned the ethic and concept of being secular an d describe ed it as “irrelevant”. The statements of Vaidya and Bhagwat authoritatively point out that RSS has moved one step ahead in the direction of implementing its agenda of Hindu Rashtra.

One thing is quite singular; Bihar election has attained the status of mother of all elections. This election is described as the “Battle of Patna” fought between Modi and Nitish, but implication cut across the geographical boundary. The compulsion of winning the election has been so acute that with the announcement of the assembly elections the BJP performed ecdysis and resorted to tested and tried mechanisms of using crude casteism and criminals. The lid on this was taken off by none else but the BJP MP from Bihar R K Singh who accused the party of selling the tickets to the criminals and ushering Bihar into Jungle Raj. Incidentally this is exactly the same charge the BJP keeps leveling at Lalu Prasad of criminalising politics. Singh alleged it has 12 tainted candidates so far. Singh sought to know: 'They are giving tickets to criminals. How will they give a clean government?

Local people also nurse the view that media, particularly the visual media has been too generous to Modi. Paradoxically while they claim that Nitish is the most preferred politician for the job of the chief minister, their survey gives majority to the BJP. This survey finding is really surprising. It is really intriguing how could people of Bihar subscribe to the views of the BJP and dump the person who brought about paradigm shift in the peoples’ perception about development and is also considered to be the only opponent of Modi? It needs some introspection.

The electorates are worried and concerned of the attempts made by the BJP to create an atmosphere of hatred against Nitish. It is a rudimentary fact and cannot be negated by any sophisticated argument that even the educated upper caste urban people still nurse feudal dislike for the dalits and backwards and are pathologically opposed to their empowerment and the concept of sharing power.

Quite amusing to see that the political discourse which appeared to have begun surrounding the polemics of development has acquired the character of fight between the upper caste and backward castes. Nitish who had preferred to go to the polls with development agenda was forced by the BJP to resort to caste politics. Though there is a general notion that Nitish is on slippery ground, the fact is Bhagwat’s remarks have saved the situation for Nitish. People are scared of witnessing revival of the bloody clashes of caste and class war of eighties. (IPA Service)