If the Indira Phobia worked magic to impress upon the various kinds of socialists to merge their identities in 1977 and float the Janata Party, in 2015 it is the BJP Phobia that has cajoled these diverse elements to bury their differences and resurrect the old Janata Party. One aspect of this political action ought to be kept in mind while even in 1977 they did not have any shared ideological and programmatic compulsion and commitment, in 2015 too they do not share even the common perception of the political development and polity.

If the resurrected BJP under the stewardship of Narendra Modi had not posed a serious threat to their existence, they would never have bothered to enter into dialogue for even coming together least to speak of merging their outfits. Undeniably the primary reason for the merger is BJP phobia, the RJD, SP, JD(U) and others are suffering from. They are scared of the ravaging BJP juggernaut. It is purely the existential crisis that has compelled them to keep their ego quotients aside and agree to share a common platform.

Ironically for the regional socialist satraps, Navin Patnaik's Biju Janata Dal, the most successful faction of the Janata family, is not at all impressed by the merger moves of SP, RJD, JD(U), JD(S), INLD and SJP. The party which has emerged victorious in all Lok Sabha and assembly polls in Odisha since 2000 asserts, 'the latest BJP phobia of other Janata Parivar parties alone' cannot be a lasting factor to sustain the Janata merger'. BJD says it is not part of the merger efforts because it thinks 'there are no definite ideological or programmatic factors.'

It was the success of Nitish’s efforts of bringing together the RJD, Congress, CPI to face the by-elections to the ten assembly seats in August last year in Bihar, in which they won 6 seats, that finally prevailed upon the erstwhile Janata leaders to look for a unified party. The results of the Bihar assembly by-polls validated the belief of the socialist Janata leaders about the need to bury their hatchets and put up a unified front to stop the advance of the BJP. This merger does not have any strategical aspect. Instead it is purely a tactical move of the erstwhile leaders. With the union of RJD, Samajwadi Party, JD(U), Janata Dal Secular - the political alliance aims to counter the BJP on a national stage starting with Bihar elections scheduled in November 2015.

It would be naïve to believe that it was with the conscious effort to unite the anti-BJP and anti-Congress forces that this merger was planned. Merger of parties based on their combined phobia can't be a solution. The most interesting aspect of the development was all these groups and parties, the off shoots of Lohia's anti-Congress politics, are consistently moving closer to Congress as they have turned weak in their respective states, with BJP emerging as the new ruler.

The political compulsion to survive is so acute that the leaders have agreed in principle to float the unified Janata Party. In their effort to counter the political might of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Janata Parivar merger is the only mechanism. As disclosed by the maverick Lalu Prasad Yadav, the alliance, likely to be christened as Samajwadi Janata Dal will have Mulayam Singh Yadav as its supreme commander. But one thing is quite certain that this new amalgam will lack that cohesive element of defined ideology and programme.

If Lalu Yadav is to be believed, the merger of SP, RJD, JD(U) and other three parties is now almost final. No doubt this will herald resurrection of the unified Janata Party but it would also throw a number of social and economic questions that will pose real challenge to the socialist satraps.

It is a known fact that these factions owe their political survival to the caste equations. While Mulayam and Lalu enjoy the support of their castemen Yadavs, Nitish was banking on a new kind of social engineering different from the traditional backward caste conglomeration. But during the last couple of years, this caste equation has acquired the real economic character. Yadav caste which on paper appeared to be a consolidated and compact sect, is divided on the sub caste basis. The creamy section of the Yadavs on the existing situation is too keen to identify itself with the BJP and get the benefits what the upper caste Thakurs, Bhumihars, Brahmins and Kayasthas were getting.

This changing caste equation has been at the root of Mulayam Singh losing the Lok Sabha elections. The same was the reason for Lalu’s RJD losing the Lok Sabha election. In Bihar, Nitish has been working tirelessly to evolve a new social engineering of the dalits, a section of the OBC and Muslims. But this got fractured during the Lok Sabha elections. He had tried to identify himself with the aspirations of Mahadalits. But the Jitan Ram Manjhi episode alienated him dalits. If Lalu desperately needs to cobble up a new alliance, Nitish is also striving for new model of social engineering. While Lalu would not mind humouring Mulayam, for obvious reasons, he is not quite enthusiastic of the merger with the JD(U) in Bihar. While Sharad Yadav said that they were seriously toying with the idea of merger, Lalu had said it was a meaningless idea.

While still acute differences of perceptions persist amongst ‘parivar’ leaders over future goals, they are in broad agreement only over the need to come together under one platform to prevent the BJP from expanding in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Apparently it may look like that Nitish Kumar was facing a tough challenge from Narendra Modi’s BJP. But the fact is otherwise; in real terms, he is facing the potent threat to his leadership from his secular ally and big brother, Lalu Yadav. Nitish’s coming back as Chief Minister has also changed the political scenario. Within a week of Nitish Kumar taking oath as the Chief Minister, senior RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, a close confidant of RJD chief Lalu Prasad, struck a discordant note by suggesting that Janata Parivar merger would be incomplete, rather fail to kick off, without Manjhi.

On March 15 Lalu literally snatched the anti-BJP initiative from Nitish. Lalu organized the protest march against the BJP and its Land Acquisition Bill, a day after Nitish observed day long fast at the JD(U) office against the Bill itself. Lalu has been cut up with Nitish for inducting Lalan Singh and P K Shahi as the cabinet ministers. They have been responsible for Lalu’s present political plight and being debarred from contesting the election. Lalan Singh is the petitioner in fodder scam case.

Till a month back, Lalu was non committal of the merger. The fact of the matter was he was not keen on unification of the six parties fearing he might lose his clout in a changed order. But it was the politics of survival that made him come back. On April 5 he went a step ahead of Nitish and announced; 'Only a few formalities are left. The country is asking for one flag and one symbol'.

Nevertheless one thing is quite clear, Nitish stands to gain maximum from the merger. Besides working for restructuring of the caste engineering, he has been galvanizing his USP, Sushashan. His record as a ruler committed to good governance is brighter than any other politician. (IPA Service)