By Satyen Mohapatra
Will Nitish pass the Bihar examination? Many feel he may not, while NDA leaders claim otherwise.
Actually, this time BJP itself seems to be a little hesitant in putting its complete confidence on the leadership of Mr Nitish Kumar. It may prove to be its biggest mistake though in retrospect.
Despite being down and out as many say Nitish’s aura plays a definite role in Bihar politics.
An astute political party, BJP understands that Mr Nitish Kumar has had his stint for a long time and does no longer enjoy the kind of image and popularity he enjoyed in his earlier days.
Clearly this is one of the reasons why the BJP is reluctant to put him as the BJP-JDU alliance’s Chief Ministerial face.
Even if the JDU-BJP alliance comes to power they want to make it clear to the electorate that it would not necessarily be Mr Nitish Kumar who will be the Chief Minister.
The anti-incumbency and fatigue factor with Nitish Kumar who held fort for 20 years may go against him though not necessarily any anger towards him of the electorate.
The Opposition party particularly the Mahagathbandhan led by Tejaswi Yadav and Rahul Gandhi of RJD and Congress respectively, seem to be giving a real challenge to the incumbent government.
Tejaswi Yadav is clearly the front runner and has been very emboldened by the fact that he has been declared the Chief Minister’s face with no if’s and but’s.
In an extremely well thought out and wise move the senior leader of the Congress former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot specifically went to Patna and declared Mr Yadav as the Chief Ministerial candidate clearing all misgivings if any between both the partners RJD and Congress.
A young youthful face to take over the reins of Bihar who promises to change the scenario of Bihar as against a possible return of Nitish.
Thus he threw a challenge at the JDU-BJP combine to come out with the announcement of its own candidate for Chief Minister.
The BJP-JDU combine’s dilly dallying on this issue puts serious questions marks in the minds of a large part of the committed Nitish followers.
The party is clearly trying to weigh out whether announcing unequivocally that Mr Nitish Kumar will be the chief Ministerial face or keeping the decision pending till after the elections, will be a more profitable option electorally.
Clearly party insiders must have pointed out that announcing the name of Nitish may result in some part of the electorate totally disenchanted with Nitish, dumping the JDU-BJP alliance altogether.
Keeping the issue hanging may still keep the voters intact as they could hope for some other candidate as Chief Minister following the election results.
How much would Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charisma play a role in garnering votes for the alliance is another question?
In Bihar analysts feel that it is Nitish’s face which plays a greater role than even the Prime Minister’s, who has a more national appeal.
Will Mr Modi be able to lift a sagging image of Nitish is the question? It is doubtful. The point is that presently there are no major national issues in the platter of Modi to serve to the people of Bihar.
No wonder he and the NDA are only repeatedly warning people not to go in for the Mahagathbandhan because with the coming of Tejaswi Yadav there would be return of the “jungle raj” of Lalu.
However, particularly with the young electorate of today talking of “jungle raj” of pre Nitish days may not have much traction which NDA hopes for.
Modi’s image itself was hit hard in the long drawn out “Vote-chori” campaign led by Rahul and Tejaswi in Bihar. Did it have any effect at all on the electorate will be only known after the election results come out?
With the authentic data provided by the Election Commission Mr Rahul Gandhi had disclosed startling facts of a single Assembly constituency in Maharashtra - Madhevapura, and come out with shocking facts like the number of duplicate voters 11,965, fake and invalid address 40,009. As also bulk voters in a single address10, 452, invalid photos, 4,132, misuse of Form 6 to be filed by new voters 33,602.
Putting a question mark on the entire process of making the electoral rolls and the election process itself, he had taken the matter to the streets in Bihar where elections were due.
Instead of conducting an enquiry suo moto the Election Commission insisted on an affidavit which a shrewd politician like Rahul Gandhi never gave. But the damage had been done.
He had at least pointed out to the lackadaisical way of creating the electoral rolls showing gross negligence on the part of the Election Commission, if we do not impute any other sinister motive.
Election Commission seems to have taken it as a challenge to its constitutional authority and attempted to come down heavily on the leader of Opposition, Mr Rahul Gandhi.
The Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party this time is likely to act as a spoiler but it would all depend upon from which alliance he cuts votes from. But it may cut votes from both the alliance partners, as the third option.
If JSP was not in the fray most of those anti BJP-JDU votes would have probably gone to RJD.
It would be interesting to see which alliance the JSP supports if its candidates win.