Patna: Will Lok Janshakti Party boss Chirag Paswan shoot Janata Dal (United) boss Nitish Kumar what his father, Ram Vilas Paswan, had done to Lalu Prasad Yadav in 2005?
Poll watchers recall that it was Ram Vilas Paswan who actually turned the 15-year-old Lalu-Rabri regime upside down. The confusion created by his political operations had paved the way for Nitish Kumar.
In 2004, after the UPA-I government headed by Manmohan Singh replaced the NDA led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lalu had insisted on the Ministry of Railways for himself. He eventually bagged it, even though Ram Vilas Paswan also had his eyes on the same ministry. Paswan had to deal with the chemical and fertilizer portfolio.
Annoyed under the ignominy of losing what he most desired to Lalu, Party patriarch Lok Janshakti had turned vindictive. While remaining in the UPA as minister, the LJP broke the alliance with Rashtriya Janata Dal from Lalu in Bihar.
He ran his party candidate against the 178 RJD candidates in the February 2005 assembly elections in Bihar.
The 2005 Assembly elections produced a brutally fractured mandate in which the JD (U) -BJP alliance fell short of a majority. The LJP had won 29 seats in the assembly and the RJD had won 81, emerging the largest party.
The LJP, then, could have supported the reinstatement of Rabri Devi. But despite flattery from UPA president Sonia Gandhi, Major Paswan stood his ground.
Bihar was under the rule of the president and in the next nine months Nitish, possessed by the desire to become prime minister and supported by the BJP wholeheartedly, befriended King Mahendra of Jehanabad. The pharmaceutical mogul, who was later made a member of Rajya Sabha, provided the financial assistance Nitish needed to split Paswan’s LJP.
Many winners of Paswan’s match joined JD (U). Elections for the assembly were held again in November 2005. Ram Vilas’s LJP once again competed independently, this time winning only 17 seats. LJP’s winning MLAs, by then drawn into the NDA, eventually secured 141 seats for the alliance and their government in Bihar.
There are some striking similarities between the 2005 and 2020 scenarios. A vicious anti-incumbency had built up against the Lalu-Rabri regime. The forage scam had taken its toll with Lalu passing the baton to Rabri and losing control over politics and government.
Nitish has also accumulated similar anti-incumbent sentiments. If the forage scam had damaged Lalu’s image, the Nitish government has witnessed Srijan’s much larger scam, which has taken a toll on his image as an honest leader. Additionally, Nitish has lost his image as a credible secular leader by ditching the 2015 mandate, returning to the BJP, and supporting everything that comes with the RSS-BJP agenda.
However, Chiraj has certain disadvantages, compared to his father’s situation.
First, Chirag, still a novice in politics, certainly lacks the maneuvering experience that his father, the champion of many battles, has demonstrated. Major Paswan is currently hospitalized.
Chirag’s disadvantage is Nitish’s advantage. The Prime Minister of Bihar, a member of the famous triumvirate of Lalu, Paswan and himself, is a proven operator in “tact, cunning and camouflage”.
Furthermore, the media, which have always played a fundamental role in creating perception, have also undergone a change.
The media, which was relatively independent in the pre-Modi-Shah era, had guessed right in the Rs 950 crore fodder scam cases that were being investigated by the then Deputy Director of the IWC UN Biswas. But the CBI is also not investigating the Srijan scam vigorously and local media is not following him. As a result, despite the fact that many of Nitish’s blue-eyed officers and other eminent citizens were charged with the Srijan scam, he has managed to preserve his image as a leader free from corruption despite the fact that the facts suggest otherwise.
Meanwhile, there are news reports circulating that there is a split in the LJP and its four deputies have opposed Chirag’s decision to fight Nitish. Chirag had announced that his party would remain with the BJP but would present candidates in 143 seats, all possible seats in which the JD (U) and his new ally, Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM, will compete.
Previously, the perception had gained ground that Chirag was relentlessly attacking Nitish at the behest of the BJP. Now, it appears that BJP fully supports Nitish’s JD (U), offering just 20 to 22 seats to Chirag against their demand for more than 40 seats.
Chirag met with BJP chief JP Nadda on Monday night, but that meeting was said to be inconclusive.
Tejaswhi Yadav, who projects himself as the chief ministerial face against Nitish, is in almost the same position Nitish was in, prior to the February 2005 elections. Rabri was experiencing anti-incumbent riots, but the people still didn’t see a credible alternative. her in Nitish. Similarly, people apparently still don’t see Tejashwi as a credible alternative to Nitish.
The setting is strikingly similar, but the players have changed.
Nalin Verma is a senior journalist and author of From Gopalganj to Raisina: my political journey, Autobiography of Lalu Prasad Yadav. He has also written The best folk tales of Bihar.
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