As his own fortunes get inextricably linked to the BJP winning Bihar, party chief Amit Shah devises a three-pronged strategy-centring around caste-to thwart the Lalu-Nitish combine.
Shah also knows that the only way to counter this is to win the Bihar elections in style.
Back in January, Amit Shah, on his first visit to Bihar after becoming the BJP president, had a question over lunch at senior BJP leader C.P. Thakur's house in Patna. "How did Nitish Kumar cancel the dinner?" he asked the select group of leaders at the table. Shah was referring to June 2010, when Nitish Kumar, then a valuable coalition partner in Bihar, had withdrawn his dinner invitation to the BJP brass, who were in Patna for the party's national executive. Nitish's move was a reaction to the BJP publishing an advertisement that showed him joining hands with his then Gujarat counterpart, Narendra Modi - a man, or more specifically his 2002 image, Nitish was eager to keep at an arm's length to save his 'secular' image.
Much has transpired since that dinner. Modi is now the prime minister, and his position at the top of the current BJP pantheon is unquestionable. Nitish, although still the CM, has never been as politically vulnerable as he is now. But the BJP has not forgotten that snub. And Amit Shah is itching to hand over the return gift in the state assembly elections this autumn.
It's easier said than done, however. A lot else has also occurred within the saffron fold since that January lunch. Especially in the last seven weeks, as it stumbled from one embarrassment to the next-from Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje's role in the Lalit Modi controversy to the Vyapam scam under Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Shah's own standing has become a bit shaky in these six months, having lost the Delhi assembly elections and murmurs building within the party about his style of functioning. No one knows it better than Shah that the knives are out for him-both within and outside the BJP-in the run-up to the election for the BJP president, due in January 2016.
Shah also knows that the only way to counter this is to win the Bihar elections in style. Sitting in the drawing room of his 11, Akbar Road residence with the air conditioning on full blast, he tells India Today that the election strategy for Bihar is more micro-detailed than any attempted in an Indian election so far. "I have a plan for every ward in the 243 seats of the state. For the last six months, my panna pramukhs have been going door to door in each village and mobilising support," he says of the party workers who identify and canvass among the electorate as per the voter's list. "In every village we know the houses that are likely to support us, who is undecided, and who is opposed to us."
He then shows an Excel spreadsheet with detailed break-up of the caste composition of voters in every assembly seat. Next to each village is a list of local and central leaders being sent to canvass there. Leaders are picked on the basis of their caste, and their likely appeal among the dominant caste of that particular seat. Shah claims he has a plan for every seat for every day of the next two months. Every evening, his office receives an update on the day's activities and the response among the voters.
In Patna, local leaders say the party has, on average, reached a strength of nearly 27,000 members in each constituency. The strategy now is simple, they say: make each of these members, along with their families, vote. The BJP is also welcoming the modern while retaining its grip on the traditional. Seen conventionally as a party of traders, the urban middle class, and upper castes, this time it is also flaunting OBC partners such as Upendra Kushwaha of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party as well as Dalit leaders such as Jitan Ram Manjhi and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party. Bowing to the caste considerations of Bihar politics, it is projecting Narendra Modi, the "development man", as a backward caste leader.
To keep up with the times, the party has categorised 6 million mobile phone owners in the state as active BJP supporters. These, says a state BJP leader, are people who sent an SMS to the BJP call centre when asked to respond-"Those who have sent us an SMS will surely vote."
As the countdown draws near, Shah's team has divided Bihar's 243 assembly seats into three categories, and earmarked specific campaign strategies. The first are the seats that the BJP traditionally dominates. Here the strategy is to spend minimal time and effort and ensure that the morale of the cadre stays high and local leaders maintain a constant connect with the voters.
The second, and the most important, category is the seats where the party expects to face pitched battles. The NDA and the Janata alliance are equally strong on paper in these constituencies, and the battle can go either way. Shah has rolled out the heavy artillery of senior BJP leaders for these seats. Special emphasis is being given to candidate selection for these seats. The NDA, to give one instance, plans to put up mostly non-Yadav candidates in case the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) fields a strong Yadav candidate for a seat. Conversely, the party plans to field Yadav candidates for seats where the Janata Dal (United) has a non-Yadav or Kurmi candidate. In a caste cauldron like Bihar, the idea is to ensure that the BJP fields candidates whose caste unites the voters of castes opposed to that of the candidate put up by the Janata alliance.
The third category comprises seats which the BJP has little chance of winning. For these, the party is working on a strategy to split the ranks of its opponents by propping up rebel candidates, and by allying with frenemies such as Pappu Yadav's Jan Adhikar Party.
Shah feels that unlike the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, religion is not going to play much of a role in the battlefield of Bihar. According to his calculation, religion comes into play as an electoral factor only if the majority community feels the minorities are being favoured blatantly, and that their interests are being deliberately ignored. In the General Election, the actions of the Akhilesh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh were perceived by many as precisely that. The result: many in the majority community joined forces to teach the minority community a lesson in the state. The polarisation that started in western UP travelled eastwards along the Ganga and delivered a bumper harvest of seats for the BJP.
There is no similar resentment among the majority community in Bihar this time around. So religious polarisation as an election strategy is ruled out. The battle will be won or lost by the alliance that is able to stitch together the more powerful caste combine.
Broadly speaking, the BJP is assured of the support of the Brahmins, Rajputs, Bhumihars, Thakurs and other upper castes. The party is also hopeful of the strong backing of many of the trading castes, such as the Kayasthas and the Baniyas. Taken together, these add up to roughly 31 per cent of Bihar's voting population. Shah is also hoping to chip away at the RJD's Yadav vote bank. During the Lok Sabha elections, the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) data showed that nearly 19 per cent of Bihar's Yadavs had voted for the BJP.
On paper, however, that may not be enough. The Janata alliance is almost guaranteed of the support of the numerically significant Muslims, estimated to be about 17 per cent, and a large part of the Yadav vote (around 14 per cent of the state's electorate). Nitish is also hoping to bag a majority of the Kurmi and Koeri vote that, taken together, adds up to about 10 per cent.
At 11, Akbar Road, Amit Shah, the BJP's army commander, frequently refers to the great Battle of Buxar in 1764 AD while charting the party's strategy for Bihar. The BJP president believes that the course of Indian politics over the next 15 years will be decided in the battle of Bihar circa 2015. Shah's calculation is simple. If the wobbly secular alliance is able to trounce the BJP army, then the halo of invincibility around Modi will crumble and his opponents will find a template they can hope to replicate in other states that go to the polls in the next three years. However, if Modi's army is able to withstand a three-pronged attack, then it will shatter the confidence of opposition parties in most states and show that the Modi wave is insurmountable even in the face of opposition unity.
Like Major Hector Munro of the East India Company in the Battle of Buxar, Amit Shah too realises that he is up against a numerically superior force. But like the Company's armyman, he knows neither battles nor elections are won on paper.
with Amitabh Srivastava in Patna
Follow the writer on Twitter @rahulkanwal