After a brief spell of exhilaration at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bihar, the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party is overcome by a sense of foreboding. It is afraid that the trip, which kick-started the party’s assembly election campaign, could end up strengthening its rivals and give them an opportunity to weave a Bihar-versus-Gujarat narrative.
At a rally in Muzaffarpur on Saturday, Modi launched a scathing attack on the leaders of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal (United). He said the RJD stood for “roz jungle raj ka darr” and added that there’s something wrong with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s “political DNA” which led him to abandon friends, namely the BJP.
The state BJP unit fears these remarks could boomerang on it. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the party performed spectacularly in the state on the back of Yadav votes. For it to repeat that success, it again needs the Yadav caste’s support. Modi’s “roz jungle-raj ka darr” remark won’t help that cause, say BJP leaders, since the Yadavs have seen the RJD as their party for decades.
“In the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress was the focus of our attack,” a senior BJP leader said. “The RJD had to face the brunt because it was an ally of the Congress. But now the Congress is hardly in the picture. We have to defeat the RJD and win over its Yadav votes. This can be done only by persuading Yadavs to switch over to the BJP because Lalu and his party have now left them in the lurch and sided with Nitish Kumar. We cannot achieve this by hitting the RJD directly.”
Wrong strategy
It is widely believed that the upcoming Bihar assembly elections are Lalu Yadav’s last chance to regain lost ground among the Yadavs, who account for nearly 14% of the state’s population. Yadavs, together with Muslims, who constitute over 16% of Bihar's population, are credited with creating a social revolution that ruled the state for 15 years and occupying the main oppositional space over the past decade.
Though RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav quickly hit back at Modi on Saturday, calling the BJP “Bharat Jalao Party”, a section of the saffron party feels the war of words is unlikely to simmer down soon. “As far as I understand, Lalu is not the person who would let people forget the definition of the RJD given by Modiji at Muzaffarpur,” said the senior BJP leader. “He will keep dragging the political debate on this issue because he knows this is one of the ways to rekindle Yadav pride.”
This isn’t the only fallout that bothers BJP leaders in Bihar. They also fear a reversal of the political gains the party had made by driving a wedge between foes-turned-friends Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar. The saffron party wanted to capitalise on those gains by emphasising on the inherent contradictions in the RJD-JD(U) combine. Bracketing the two parties together and targeting them simultaneously, as Modi did at Muzaffarpur, may produce a different result.
Insider vs outsider
Despite making public announcements of contesting the polls together and under Nitish Kumar’s leadership, Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar have been working separately, feeding speculations that it is a half-hearted alliance that will not materialise on the ground. On occasions, the two leaders have even made indirect attacks against each other.
“The blind attack of yesterday may revive their [Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav’s] camaraderie,” said a BJP leader, “and that won’t be good news for the party.”
What is worse, Modi’s remark that “there is something wrong” in Nitish Kumar’s “political DNA” has given the chief minister an opportunity to assert that the prime minister has insulted all Biharis. “The Prime Minister said there is something wrong in my DNA. I’m a son of Bihar, so it is the same DNA as the people of Bihar,” Nitish tweeted. “I leave it to the people of Bihar how to judge a person who maligns their DNA.”
BJP insiders fear this controversy may fuel an uncomfortable Bihar DNA-versus-Gujarat DNA debate as the campaign picks up in the state.
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At a rally in Muzaffarpur on Saturday, Modi launched a scathing attack on the leaders of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal (United). He said the RJD stood for “roz jungle raj ka darr” and added that there’s something wrong with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s “political DNA” which led him to abandon friends, namely the BJP.
The state BJP unit fears these remarks could boomerang on it. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the party performed spectacularly in the state on the back of Yadav votes. For it to repeat that success, it again needs the Yadav caste’s support. Modi’s “roz jungle-raj ka darr” remark won’t help that cause, say BJP leaders, since the Yadavs have seen the RJD as their party for decades.
“In the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress was the focus of our attack,” a senior BJP leader said. “The RJD had to face the brunt because it was an ally of the Congress. But now the Congress is hardly in the picture. We have to defeat the RJD and win over its Yadav votes. This can be done only by persuading Yadavs to switch over to the BJP because Lalu and his party have now left them in the lurch and sided with Nitish Kumar. We cannot achieve this by hitting the RJD directly.”
Wrong strategy
It is widely believed that the upcoming Bihar assembly elections are Lalu Yadav’s last chance to regain lost ground among the Yadavs, who account for nearly 14% of the state’s population. Yadavs, together with Muslims, who constitute over 16% of Bihar's population, are credited with creating a social revolution that ruled the state for 15 years and occupying the main oppositional space over the past decade.
Though RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav quickly hit back at Modi on Saturday, calling the BJP “Bharat Jalao Party”, a section of the saffron party feels the war of words is unlikely to simmer down soon. “As far as I understand, Lalu is not the person who would let people forget the definition of the RJD given by Modiji at Muzaffarpur,” said the senior BJP leader. “He will keep dragging the political debate on this issue because he knows this is one of the ways to rekindle Yadav pride.”
This isn’t the only fallout that bothers BJP leaders in Bihar. They also fear a reversal of the political gains the party had made by driving a wedge between foes-turned-friends Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar. The saffron party wanted to capitalise on those gains by emphasising on the inherent contradictions in the RJD-JD(U) combine. Bracketing the two parties together and targeting them simultaneously, as Modi did at Muzaffarpur, may produce a different result.
Insider vs outsider
Despite making public announcements of contesting the polls together and under Nitish Kumar’s leadership, Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar have been working separately, feeding speculations that it is a half-hearted alliance that will not materialise on the ground. On occasions, the two leaders have even made indirect attacks against each other.
“The blind attack of yesterday may revive their [Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav’s] camaraderie,” said a BJP leader, “and that won’t be good news for the party.”
What is worse, Modi’s remark that “there is something wrong” in Nitish Kumar’s “political DNA” has given the chief minister an opportunity to assert that the prime minister has insulted all Biharis. “The Prime Minister said there is something wrong in my DNA. I’m a son of Bihar, so it is the same DNA as the people of Bihar,” Nitish tweeted. “I leave it to the people of Bihar how to judge a person who maligns their DNA.”
BJP insiders fear this controversy may fuel an uncomfortable Bihar DNA-versus-Gujarat DNA debate as the campaign picks up in the state.