What is creating utmost confusion is the total silence of the central leadership and its unwillingness to intervene and provide a guideline. In fact, after the miserable defeat of the party in the 2015 assembly elections, the central leadership has not been giving too much leverage to the state leaders. This has simply sharpened the factional feud in the party, with one group openly working against the other.

For BJP chief Amit Shah, right now Bihar does not feature in the priority list. But it is also a fact that the central leadership is in a state of stupor. This has provided the opportunity to a section of the leaders led by Sushil Kumar Modi to launch a tirade against the RJD. In his mission Modi is getting onerous support from some senior JD(U) leaders, who are either scared of him or nurse personal hatred against him. If sources are to be believed, the documents pertaining to money laundering and purchase of land by Lalu and his kids were made available to Modi by these leaders.

In Bihar politics, Lalu is the enemy of both Nitish and BJP. It is an open secret that Nitish cannot aspire to emerge as a Bihari leader on his own. He does not have any personal support base. This has been proved beyond doubt during the 2015 assembly elections. Though he aligned with Lalu for electoral compulsions, this has been creating lots of problems for him. People have come to the conclusion that Lalu is the de jure ruler. Officials take orders from him. This has not been good for the political health of Nitish. Obviously Nitish would prefer to show Lalu his place. But unfortunately success so far eluded him.

The BJP is also, more or less, suffering from the same malaise. The party cannot aspire to win unless it breaks the RJD-JD(U) alliance. Strategically, maligning Lalu is the best course open for it. Sushil Modi’s systematic campaign against Lalu and his sons and daughters for the past three months has to be seen in this context. Earlier only Lalu was his target but in recent times he has been aiming at the daughters. But the problem for Modi is that there are few takers for his diatribe against Lalu. Even people who nurse a pathological dislike for Lalu do not approve of this strategy of Modi. They feel that he has been going overboard and instead of boosting the prospect of the party, it would alienate a sizeable chunk of the backward castes, especially the Yadavs, who already accuse the BJP and its leaders of pursuing a policy of vengeance.

At the same time, Modi’s campaign to malign the public image of his sons and daughters has been matter of serious concern to Lalu. While they are yet to anchor in the state politics, Modi has been out to finish them. But on his part Lalu has been assiduously trying to promote them. Though the RJD sources out rightly reject the charges of Modi, they concede that a serious effort was on to link the recent expose with the fodder scam. The CBI had not succeeded in tracing the nature of investment of the fodder scam money. Even it lost the case of disproportionate asset filed against Lalu. During those days apprehensions were expressed that the money might have been put into properties.

Modi recently alleged that a low-level railways employee donated property worth Rs 62 lakh in 2014 to Lalu Prasad's daughter Hema Yadav. He also sought to know why poor people were gifting property to the RJD chief. Last week, Modi claimed that a man listed as a below poverty line resident of Siyadih in Siwan district had gifted property worth over Rs 1 crore to Lalu's family in 2014. The BJP leader also accused the RJD chief of misusing his position - while serving as railway minister in the UPA government - to acquire assets for his family."Why else would poor people donate their property to him?" Modi asked. He alleged that the modus operandi was: Lalu would extend favours to certain people and in return would get properties from them registered in the name of his confidants, who would then donate these to Lalu's family.

But Mod’s move is somehow proving to be counterproductive. While common people have lost interest and look at it simply with an academic interest, the Yadavs are rallying more and more behind Lalu. For them Modi’s tirade is a malicious design to denigrate Lalu. In the Hindi heartland Lalu Yadav has emerged as the prime Yadav leader after Mulayam Singh Yadav. Since the central leadership is yet to work out a comprehensive strategy in the backdrop of the UP assembly elections to counter Lalu, it has refrained from coming out with any guideline. They also do not completely approve of the line adopted by Modi, as most of them attribute it to his political compulsions to survive in the state politics.

The shrewd politician that he is, Nitish has understood the popular pulse and in a swift move mended his approach. After disdainfully seeking to know the names of the places and states where the CBI had conducted raids to retrieve Lalu’s hidden money, Nitish has now extended support to him. As if this was not enough, only three days ago he dedicated two bridges to the people of the state as a birthday gift to Lalu. Apparently Nitish intended to send a message that all is well with Bihar's ruling alliance. Interestingly, Lalu was by his side on occasion. The Digha-Sonepur JP Setu and the Ara-Chhapra Veer Kunwar Singh Setu would boost connectivity between the northern and southern parts of the state, the base areas of Lalu.

Leaders belonging to Nitish and Lalu’s parties have been training guns at each other and the chief minister differing with his ally over issues such as demonetisation has sparked political speculation that the alliance was on the verge of collapse, and that the chief minister was warming up to old ally BJP. It was even said that deputy chief minister Tejashwvi was also trying to assert himself independently and taking decisions without even consulting Nitish. The news coming out of the state secretariat did not augur well for Nitish and the grand alliance.

Quite intriguingly, Nitish attacked the BJP for its criticism of the inaugural date of the two bridges coinciding with Lalu's birthday saying the state government has the right to choose the date. All said and done, however, the situation continues to be in a flux and apparently a long battle lies ahead of all contenders. (IPA Service)