Will Bihar vote for Nitish?

In Khagariya last week, at one of his Janata Durbars to take the government to the people’s doorstep, Nitish Kumar made public the mobile numbers of the chief secretary R J M Pillai and other senior secretaries in his government.

The harried chief secretary said later that his phone had not stopped ringing since then, and in three days, he had received more than 600 calls. Some had called at four in the morning just to check whether it would be the chief secretary himself who would pick up the phone. The phone of the principal secretary HRD simply packed up. His wife said he had received 2,500 calls on his “official” mobile, and she could not get through to him on that number.

The mobile of the principal secretary health finally had a recorded message at the other end saying, ‘This number does not exist’. And the phone of the chairman of the Bihar State Electricity Board was perennially ‘busy’. In a situation like this, it was only a matter of time before the officials got around to getting phone numbers that were not just ‘official’, if they have not done so already.

But there was a method in Nitish Kumar’s ‘madness’. He wanted to give a clear message that governance should be accessible to people. A sociologist interpreted it as Nitish ‘demystifying the processes of State building’. When you ask Nitish Kumar what he considers to be his priority number one, he says it is to provide “governance at the ground level” to ensure that “people receive what they are entitled to”.

His dream then would have been fulfilled.

Even though he did little in terms of providing good governance to Bihar, Lalu Prasad achieved during his tenure what had at one time seemed to be a dream — the political democratisation of Bihar and overturning the existing socio-political structure on its head. The upper castes had all along ruled the state, and indeed north India, to such an extent that the Congress could only think of putting a Rajput at the head of government in Patna, if it was a Brahmin as chief minister in UP. But the 15-year rule between 1991 and 2005, put an end to that story and brought to the fore a new power elite, giving them a voice they had not had before.

Nitish Kumar picked up where Lalu Prasad had left and where he had not made a mark — and that is in the realm of governance.

People wanted schools for their children, medicines when they were sick, roads that were not broken down, bijlee and paani that came for an assured number of hours.

In the three years since he came to power, Nitish Kumar has acquired the reputation of being a leader who means well.

Even his detractors may question his neeti (policy) but not his neeyat (intention).

Through his Janata Durbars and his recent vikas yatra through the state, he has tried to take “aapki sarkar aapke dwar” (your government at your doorstep).

If there were 25 lakh children out of school earlier, it is now down to 10 lakh, according to an NGO. The primary health centres are actually beginning to function and disburse free medicines to the needy where healthcare was so rundown that hospitals were overrun by stray dogs. A story doing rounds in Bihar — whether true or folklore — is of a senior politician who was taken to Bettiah hospital and the doctor could not find a piece of paper to write the prescription on. Nitish Kumar admits that the sub-centres are nowhere near working yet because they do not have the doctors and the paramedics. Go to Patna after a spell, and what strikes you most is families with children out at 10.30 pm having ice creams — something that was not a common sight 5-10 years ago, when Bihar, for all the political democratisation that was taking place, was also known for kidnapping, extortion and ransom demand.

The moot question, however, and one that cannot be wished away is: Can development win Nitish Kumar votes? Though Nitish himself has no doubts on this score, the honest answer to that question probably is that development, by itself, is not enough to win an election in a caste-ridden and feudal state like Bihar.

It is for nothing that Nitish forged an alternative social alliance in 2005 to counter Lalu’s MY(Muslim-Yadav). Nitish’s support base was made up of Kurmi/Koeris, extremely backward communities who make up 33 per cent of the state’s population and are popularly referred to as Annexure I lists, and upper castes. The extremely backward were supporting Lalu earlier but a substantial number swung to Nitish’s side in 2005. Unlike Uttar Pradesh, the upper castes in Bihar have not deserted the BJP.

In the last three years, Nitish has not only consolidated his following amongst these communities, but also has specially targeted the smaller Dalit communities, giving them the larger identity of Mahadalits, and through a host of schemes and programmes compelled a section amongst the Muslims to look at him with new respect.

It is possible that a section of the Muslim community may vote for him in an assembly election, but are unlikely to cast their vote in the Lok Sabha polls to make L K Advani the prime minister.

This is the paradox of politics today.

Nitish Kumar’s fate, in terms of how many seats he gets in the coming Lok Sabha elections, will depend not just on the good work he has done, nor on the caste line-up, but it will hinge on the alliances that get forged in Bihar. The story will be different if Lalu Prasad can take along both the Congress and Ram Vilas Paswan with him, and the combine had yielded them a rich harvest of 29 Lok Sabha seats in 2004, leaving only 11 for the JD(U) and the BJP alliance. In the 2005 assembly elections, which brought Nitish Kumar to power, the JD(U)-BJP alliance polled 36 per cent of the vote, whereas the RJD had 23 per cent, Congress six per cent and Ram Vilas Paswan 11 per cent.

Even when Lalu was ousted three years ago, he had commanded 23 per cent of the popular vote. A recent CSDS-CNN IBN’s survey has shown that the JD(U)-BJP combine and the RJD-Congress are running neck and neck, with the former getting 39 per cent of the popular vote and the latter 38 per cent and Paswan’s LJP down to five per cent. Paswan may be demanding a whopping 16 seats in Bihar from Lalu, but Lalu will have to stoop if he wants to conquer.

That is why Nitish has been working overtime to win over ground level support of groups who could make a difference.

In the coming Lok Sabha polls, Nitish Kumar and the BJP are widely expected to get as many seats as Lalu and his allies did in 2004, and that will be no mean addition to the NDA tally. But the picture can change if the RJD-LJP-Congress decided to fight united. Then Nitish will have a tough contest on his hands. Clearly, alliances are going to be the key to electoral success in 2009, in Bihar as also in the rest of the country ■

Source : expressbuzz.com