Bihar polls: With 10 days to go, these are 10 things you need to know

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Many party leaders have privately described the statements by Singh and Pande as “rhetoric” but it’s evident that the assurance will percolate down. The issue of who will lead Bihar will matter because the state has not had an upper-caste CM since 1990, because of the politics of Lalu and JD(U) CM Nitish Kumar. After Bhagwat’s remark, the RJD and the JD(U) have been spreading the word in villages that a BJP vote will lead to a Bhumihar, Rajput or Brahmin chief minister. This scare tactic may be enough to unite the Mandal supporters against the BJP in many Yadav constituencies. Then again, the powerful Narendra Modi-Amit Shah leadership has installed as CMs a Brahmin (Devendra Fadnavis) in the Maratha-dominated politics of Maharashtra, a non-tribal (Raghubar Das) in Jharkhand and a non-Jat (Manohar Lal Khattar) in Haryana.

In Bihar, the BJP has moved quickly to play the OBC card but Modi-Shah’s choice of a CM will be impacted, if not limited, if the NDA is in a position to win. The defensive move is the first setback to the BJP’s strategy. Lalu’s question to the BJP is straight: are you going to dump Mandal-backed reservation? BJP chief Shah has stressed the party has no plan of shelving the reservation system. On Thursday, he told partymen to go to the villages and convey PM Modi’s message that the BJP is committed to reservation. Also on Thursday, Union minister Arun Jaitley virtually endorsed the assurances by his party’s leaders on a non-upper caste CM. “Well, they have expressed their political perceptions. There may be some weight in their perceptions,” Jaitley said in Patna. But Lalu, who is desperate to counter the “jungle raj” charge, has got an issue that he loves to latch on to. Even if he goes on to lose the election, he can claim to have wrangled thumping support from the BJP for “Mandal politics”. Then again, the situation that the BJP finds itself in has also been caused by other reservation-based agitations, such as that of the Patels in Gujarat led by Hardik Patel.

3 What the people say: Since there’s a politician inside every voter in Bihar, it is difficult to meet just 10 or 20 people in any town and arrive at a safe conclusion. Currently, the most commonly heard “people’s voices” go something like this:

* “Aap ki jaat kya hai (what is your caste)?” asked Dineshkumar Mishra, a scholar from the Kosi river basin, in response to a question about the public mood. Every discussion on the election starts with this question, he said. “There is an undercurrent to vote for the BJP but does not yet look a sure winner. Certainly not today,” said Mishra, also a social activist.

* “Surely, there is an undercurrent for change in Bihar. The change means the BJP,” said Patna-based lawyer Vinod Kanth.

* “Why are you asking political questions? Look around Patna. It’s a garbage dump. You should know whom people would vote for,” said Shubhra, a college student.

* “Move outside Patna and you will know that the BJP’s pomp and show are all fake,” said Sudhanshu Shekhar Bhaskar, an RJD leader from Bhagalpur.

4 On the verge of history: The voters had not been open about what’s on their minds before the last few elections. This time, there remains no doubt that Bihar is on the cusp of a historic moment, with an election that is considered as a quarterfinal for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The result will open up endless possibilities of the new politics that lies ahead. The BJP is overtly using the Modi card, wooing women voters and targeting youth. Covertly, it is wary of caste mathematics. It thinks the votes of youth, who want development and to dump their caste identity, will lead the party to victory. So once again, Modi-Shah decided not to project a local leader and use Modi’s persona instead, suggesting that nobody will stand next to or near him.

5 The Amit Shah model: Interestingly, conversations with many Dalit, Muslim and Yadav leaders of the grand alliance at the RJD and JD-U offices in Patna’s Beerchand Patel Marg suggest that it’s not the so-called Gujarat model that’s working in the nooks and crannies of the state, as many politicians would like to believe. What national and regional parties will have to face increasingly is the Shah model of electioneering that is taking shape from Kishanganj to Kaimur. Shah’s campaign is a concoction of ethnic emotions, political history at the local level, the Modi card, caste-based calculations in allotting tickets and the latest technology to reach voters. All of the above have been unleashed with the help of the BJP’s money power. Shah has emerged the master of political messaging in the season of elections.

6 Lalu and his M-Y: Over the last 25 years, the Yadavs have offered Lalu complete loyalty. This election is likely to decide the fate of the Yadav community’s relationship with their icon. If Lalu loses and the grand alliance fails, the Yadavs are likely to fall into the BJP’s arms. BJP leaders believe Yadavs are their “natural voters” because they are “religious” and uphold Hindu traditions strictly. “They are more Hindu than many other Hindu castes. Their natural place is on our side. Lalu has unnaturally kept them and Muslims together,” a senior BJP leader told The Indian Express. The BJP believes the M-Y combination worked only because of Lalu. If Lalu fails in Bihar, the BJP expects Yadavs to desert him for good. It is also possible the Yadavs may want to give Lalu a “last chance” to come back. But the BJP argues that if Yadavs and Muslims join hands in RJD constituencies, it will have the advantage of the non-Yadav, non-Muslim votes by default.

7 What will Modi say?: In a first, the BJP has started replacing local parties and the Congress from the village level to the state capital and become the pole around which political action and reaction is taking place. Anti-BJPism in Indian politics, which could reach a climax in 2019, is beginning to take shape here. Many leaders of non-BJP parties in Bihar are waiting for PM Modi’s speech in Banka on October 2. They want to hear Modi’s views on Bhagwat’s remarks although the party in Patna wants the PM to concentrate on youth votes. After every speech by the PM, Nitish addresses a press conference to rebut various points. But it was only after Bhagwat’s remark and an outburst by BJP MP R K Singh on allotment of tickets that the party really went on the defensive.

8 And now, the BJP’s ‘real hero’: As in all recent polls, the BJP’s political propaganda is loud and unabashed. It is likely that its sangathan shakti (organisational strength) will remain the real “hero” in this election too. Saudhan Singh, national coordinator, and Nagendra, Patna-based coordinator, of RSS-BJP are keeping a watch on the movement of foot soldiers connecting social and cultural leaders in towns and villages. Shah and former deputy CM Sushil Modi have worked in tandem to make the most of RSS’s network.

9 The communal angle: It can happen only in India that one political party (JD-U) has organised camps to train its cadres to prevent another (BJP) from disturbing communal harmony, says RJD leader Dr Tanveer Hasan who belongs to Begusarai. “We are alert and we will not allow communal voting. We have told our leaders to not be led astray by rumours. Let Asaduddin Owaisi come and go. He can’t impact the Bihari mind,” Dr Hasan told The Indian Express. He was referring to the debut in the state — in the Seemanchal region — by Hyderabad-based Owaisi’s party AIMIM (All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen).

10 Congress 0 to 5? A Congressman, who said he has seen a survey done by his party on its chances, admitted that it may get zero to five seats. “Zero” was also shown as a possibility, he said. The party has 41 of the 243 seats in the “grand alliance”. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will address nine rallies, from October 3. And, the party will concentrate on increasing its vote share which is hovering around nine per cent. The Congress is harping on its anti-RSS stance and emphasising it is part of a secular alliance that can protect the minorities and the poor. It is clear now that Nitish and Lalu are not keen on Rahul addressing too many rallies. Rahul and Lalu do not seem to have clicked yet, and are still keeping a safe distance from each other. Even the grand alliance has not proved enough for them to bond.

What it all adds up to

While Lalu is trying to make this election a “forwards versus backwards” fight, Nitish wants it to turn it into a class war and show that the BJP is siding with the rich. He is trying hard to raise Bihari asmita (identity) while the BJP is diverting or diluting the class polarisation by talking about PM Modi, the future of Bihar and the endless possibilities of development.

Lalu is a one-man army trying to hit the BJP on the issues of secularism-communalism and Modi’s development card. In an indication of his effort to identify with the poor, Yadavs and Muslims, a RJD hoarding in Patna directed at Modi quotes Lalu as saying: “Achcha din ka sapna dekar tune murkh banaya. Garibon, badla le lena jisne dukh pahunchaya” (You fooled us by showing a dream of happy days. Poor people, take revenge against those who brought grief on you).”