BJP's Plan B for Bihar: Pitting Yogi Adityanath against Nitish Kumar for 2019
Analysts however say creating a dent in Bihar's mahagathbandhan won't be easy.
With the Nitish Kumar-Lalu Prasad Yadav combine showing no signs of cracking despite its attempts to woo the chief minister, the BJP seems to have switched to 'Plan B' for Bihar - sending Yogi Adityanath to Nitishland.
Addressing an impressive rally in Darbhanga (north Bihar) on June 15, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister told his Bihari audience that he had been "chosen" to work in their state. "By the next assembly polls, I'll travel to every district and see that a BJP government is formed in Bihar," he told them.
Though Adityanath spoke of only the assembly polls, party insiders say the aim is to build up the BJP in Bihar before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance bagged 31 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar in 2014 but that was because Nitish and Lalu were fighting separately. Coming together in a 'grand alliance' a year on, they gave NDA a drubbing in the assembly polls.
With less than two years before the general election, the BJP is taking no chances. Adityanath has been given the responsibility of Bihar in addition to his own state, in the belief that he has greater appeal than the party's Bihari leaders. The national leadership believes his clean image as a hard taskmaster makes him an effective counter to Nitish. Adityanath's presence in the state through the countdown to the 2019 polls, they believe, will also keep a certain pressure on Nitish. They're also counting on his immense popularity in the north Bihar districts.
And the UP CM revealed some of his 'soft Hindutva' strategy for Bihar when he dared Nitish to "close down illegal slaughterhouses in 24 hours" as he did in UP. At the Darbhanga rally, he questioned Nitish's silence on triple talaq.
Analysts however say creating a dent in Bihar's mahagathbandhan won't be easy. Adityanath's constant forays into the state, they say, could help keep the Nitish-Lalu alliance on its toes.
Pullquote
Speaking in Darbhanga district in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath praised the prime minister for, among other things, presenting official visitors to India with copies of the Bhagvad Gita and Ramayana. Adityanath also criticised Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar for not "break[ing] his silence" on the issue of triple talaq. Adityanath then added that he didn't participate in the "politics of caste and religion".