As a result, the Congress now has to treat both the RJD and the LJP with greater respect. It can no longer afford to spurn a seat-sharing offer from the two former Union ministers in Jharkhand.

The rise of the RJD from the ashes, as it were, is one of the curious features of the recent by-elections in 18 Bihar constituencies. By winning six of them, Lalu Yadav has shown that his adversaries can write him off only at their peril.

Yet, a dismissive attitude towards him was not surprising after the Lok Sabha elections. Not only had the JD (U)-BJP combination won comfortably with 20 and 12 seats, respectively, for the two partners, but its success was considered natural in view of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's pro-development image.

The RJD, on the other hand, was clearly on its way down. It could win only four parliamentary seats and its ally, the LJP, none at all. It was believed, therefore, that it would take a long time for Lalu Prasad to live down his reputation as the person who was responsible for Bihar's precipitous decline into lawlessness and an economic disaster zone.

It is difficult to say what made the electorate change its mind in so short a time. Did the BJP's descent into organizational disarray after its second successive defeat in a Lok Sabha poll make the voters think that the ruling alliance was bound to fall apart soon ? Or did the RSS's open intervention in the BJP's affairs drive away even the few Muslim supporters which the JD (U) might have drawn to its side ?

It is also possible that the eagerness with which Nitish Kumar courted the extreme backward castes (EBC) led to a further consolidation of the OBC votes, mainly of the Yadavs, behind Lalu Yadav and of sizeable sections of the Dalits behind Paswan. The marginal revival of the Congress - it won two seats, the same as the BJP - also showed that it retained some of its influence, presumably among the Muslims and Dalits and also some of the upper castes.

Arguably, Nitish Kumar's divisive tactics did not serve him well. Not only did he place special importance on the uplift of the EBC, but he also tried to divide the Dalits and the Muslims as well by identifying the Mahadalits and backward and forward Muslims.

Not surprisingly, the Mahadalits excluded the Chamars and Paswans since these are the castes to which Mayawati and Ramvilas Paswan belong. A cynical ploy guided so obviously by political calculations and not by a genuine desire to provide succour to the deprived sections could not but backfire.

Similarly, the attempt to divide the Muslims into Pashmanda or backward and forward groups on the plea that the latter have cornered all the benefits apparently did not work in a community which is more monolithic than the Hindus.

The reason for Nitish Kumar to try these tactics is understandable since the EBC make up about 35 per cent of the state's population and the Muslims constitute about 15 per cent of each constituency. But the excessive emphasis on caste and community could only further strengthen these familiar factors in the politics of the Hindi heartland, thereby benefitting Lalu Yadav who represents numerically the most powerful of the backward castes.

In a way, therefore, the outcome of the by-elections is bad news for Bihar, for it may revive the caste antagonisms all over again not only between the lower and upper castes, but among the OBCs as well, especially between the Yadavs and Kurmis, the community to which Nitish Kumar belongs.

The only way out is for Nitish Kumar to bring the focus back on development. Since his efforts have already led to an improvement in the state's road conditions along with a curbing of some of the earlier lawlessness, he can be said to have made some progress.

A panicky regression at this stage to casteism will be all the more unfortunate because it is not a battle which he can win if Lalu Yadav succeeds in breathing new life into his old MY (Muslim-Yadav) formula with a little help from the Congress in roping in the Dalits as well.

The RJD leader's praise of Sonia Gandhi is probably the result of not only personal admiration, but also the political compulsion of keeping a party on his side, which had earlier banked on the winning combination of an upper caste-minority-Dalit support base. (IPA)