ENARADA , New Delhi,
By Ajay N Jha
The mighty RJD Supremo who lorded over Bihar close to 16 years has finally been nailed. The CBI court found him guilty in the fodder scam. Legal experts say he may be slapped a jail term between three and seven years.
Any chance of his wriggling out of the situation through political manipulation is closed after Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s open denouncement of the ordinance passed by the government to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling on convicted leaders. Lalu loses his House membership.
More than that, it could change the course of politics in Bihar which would benefit Congress party if it takes careful steps to augment its presence. With all possibilities of Lalu in jail, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) – will be fighting a battle for survival. The general elections are due mid-2014 and the assembly elections in Bihar are scheduled for the year after that. The party’s mascot won’t be present to plead its case before the electorate which is getting increasing restless for a regime change.
The RJD had hoped to make big political gains from the growing disenchantment of the masses with the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) government. There have been hints in the air that the popular mood is swinging back in favour of the party, particularly after Nitish broke his 17-year-old alliance with the BJP. The RJD candidate had won with a thumping margin over the ruling party candidate in a parliamentary bye poll a couple of months ago.
This has enthused RJD cadre in a big way and lalu had himself started chalking out grand electoral plans for the party. After the CBI court verdict, everything would back to the starting line for the RJD. Lalu has not allowed a second line of leadership to grow in the party apprehending threats to his position. Now the RJD stares at a leadership vacuum.
It is still not clear as to who would lead the party in his absence, a family member or a senior leader. There’s some tension in the party already and there are hints of factionalism. Even if the party manages the leadership question in some way, there is the bigger challenge of keeping the party’s support base intact.
The Muslims and Yadavs constitute the primary vote banks of the party. Of the two, Yadavs are more loyal to Lalu, but in his absence, there are chances are that they would veer towards the BJP.
Lalu’s jail term has come as a music to the BJP in Bihar which has already started efforts at chipping away at the Yadav vote base. The Yadav community has scores to settle with Nitish Kumar and would not vote for a party that is not likely to make a major impact in the elections.
In all probability the Narendra Modi factor could drive the Muslims to support Nitish. So both the BJP and the JD(U) stand to gain from the split in the RJD’s support base. Also, there is the question mark on whether the Yadavs would accept anyone other than Lalu or his family members as their leader. If they don’t, the RJD faces disintegration.
It’s interesting that of the total four RJD members in Lok Sabha, three are from the upper caste Rajput community, who include former Union Minister Raguvansh Prasad Singh. Who seems to be ahead is ahead in the leadership race now.
Another party MP Prabhunath Singh, too, said they had nothing to worry since whenever Lalu had gone to jail, the RJD makes a brilliant bounce back, putting up strong performances. But that would be easier said than done now.
The coming days would make clear how such show of confidence travels down the support base. While going to jail in the fodder scam last time, Lalu had handed over power to his wife Rabri Devi while his two brothers-in-law helped her out. This time, however, Rabri Devi has opted out of the race while his two grown-up sons who are well into active politics too have expressed “unwillingness” to lead the party right now.
It was in 1990 that Congress leader Sitaram Kesri gave a billion dollar advice to Lalu Prasad saying ‘Always keep Congress party in your lap and never bring it down on the ground because the moment you do that, it would find its root and spring up all over again’. RJD during its 16 years of misrule in Bihar followed that advice like a gospel and that even today, explains the reason behind the Congress party’s plight in Bihar.
The damage done by Lalu Prasad to the health and future of Congress party in Bihar was so severe that even in 2010 Assembly polls when it dared to go alone, it fell by mouth and recorded one of the worst defeats by the party since independence..
This incident has provided a great opportunity to Congress party to merge as the Third Alternative in the State and make a huge dent in RJD vote bank of Muslims.
The Congress leadership has finally fallen back on the dalit vote bank card even as feverish pitch was made to field a good Bramhin leader as the new BPCC President who commanded respect of all communities and is capable of taking all sections and who has not been a party deserter.
Traditionally, the Congress party relied on Bramhin- Dalits and Muslim vote bank to win elections. This was systematically destroyed in last two decades. While BPCC President Ashok Chaudhary could still concentrate on his community vote bank, people like CP Joshi and KL Sharma need to concentrate on the Bramhin- Bhumihar combination would be able to win at least 60 seats in Assembly and 7 to 8 seats in parliament.
It is time to completely overhaul and re-structure in DCC s as well where young and credible people are given the responsibility of galvanizing the party cadre. The Nitish govt has been tottering and has virtually gone back to RJD era with large scale corruption and Nitish Kumar’s claim of ‘Susashan’ had actually become ‘kusashan’.
With BJP- JD(U) alliance falling apart, knives are out in the open to poach each other’s chieftains and embarrass them publicly. Moreover, the Modi magic seems to have emboldened to the BJP unit in Bihar to hope for a better harvest in 2014 than its share of 12 seats in 2009.
Till now, the RJD Supremo had been enticing the Congress party to join hands with him only to augment his own political base. But the history of voting pattern in Bihar has shown that while Congress workers could transfer their votes in favour of RJD candidates, the same had not happened in reverse and that is one of the reasons for the Congress party’s appalling performance in the state during the last 15 years.
That way Rahul Gandhi’s decision to go in 2010 State Assembly elections was right because he understood that this was the only way to resurrect the party from the grass root. It is a different matter that the Congress party shenanigans led by Mukul wasnik and Mehboob Ali kaiser sold nothing less than 169 out of the total of 243 seats and the party could just win 4 seats at the end. This was the lowest in Bihar so far.
Even otherwise, the Congress party in Bihar could do only better from here while with Lalu in jail, the RJD would be fighting the battle for his own relevance and political survival in Bihar. Ram Vias Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party has a limited base and he would once again, join hands with RJD.
Given that Bihar would witness a four-cornered fight on all 40 seats in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, it is in the best interest of the Congress party to fight elections on its own steam than tag on to RJD-LJP combine. There are chances that the Congress party could end up winning at least 6 to 8 seats if it puts up younger and credible candidates because the margin of victory would be lower in such a scenario, the Congress could win a few seats more than what it did in 2009 where its tally was just 2 out of the total of 40 seats.
Even otherwise, it would be wise for the Congress party ‘to go alone’ because in the face of a possible a hung parliament post 2014, the congress party may require the support of both JD(U) and RJD and having a pre-poll tie up with one of them would mean losing the support of the other. The Congress gamble in Uttar Pradesh has paid off in the form of support of both SP and BSP on certain occasions despite fuming fretting by both Mulayam and Mayawati.
But the Congress party has to prepare hard and leave nothing to chance. It could improve its tally of seats substantially if care is taken to select good candidates from now itself. The bottom-line is that, the Congress party can re-gain and recover a lot of ground from RJD which it had lost with Lalu at the helm.
(Posted on October 1, 2013 @ 8am)
(Ajay N Jha is a veteran journalist from both Print and Electronic media. He is the President and CEO of WICS Global Communications. His email id is Ajay N Jha <ajayjha30@gmail.com> )
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