Nitish Kumar: One loss,many implications

The odds had appeared stacked in Nitish’s favour. He had fielded his longtime friend Prashant Kumar Shahi,former advocate general and now HRD minister,to go with the image he has been seeking to create of “good governance and high growth”. Shahi’s family hails from Maharahganj and belongs to the Bhumihar community,the second largest in the constituency. The largest are the Rajputs,whose votes were expected to be split between Lalu’s candidate and the one the Congress fielded,apparently to keep Nitish in good humour. In the calculations of Nitish’s JD-U,EBCs,Mahadalits and Muslims would have voted for the party because of the welfare measures the government has been taking up for those communities.

Shahi ended up losing by 1,37,126 votes to Prabhunath Singh of Lalu’s RJD.

In his first reactions to the defeat,Nitish said on Thursday,“Our alliance is intact and strong. NDA leaders worked together.” This came amid candidate Shahi’s allegation that “some friends in the coalition did not help”.

Nitish and his party’s opposition to Narendra Modi as the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate is well known,a stand they have made clear by insisting the candidate be one with a clean,secular image. Party sources have hinted they could be comfortable with the NDA deciding to go to the polls without naming a prime ministerial candidate.

The signals from the BJP after the defeat have been mixed. State party president Mangal Pandey dismissed Shahi’s allegation and said,“We are shocked at the loss. NDA leaders will sit together to find the reasons and prepare strategies”. But minister Giriraj Singh,a fan of Modi,said,“We might have lost because our growth wheel is not moving as fast as Gujarat’s.”

The result serves a reminder that Nitish’s social engineering formula for EBCs,Mahadalits and Muslims does not yet meet the demands of the upper castes,who constitute 11 per cent of Bihar’s population. They have been waiting for the Upper Caste Commission to submit a report that would include how large a chunk of them are economically backward. Upper-caste groups frequently complain that welfare projects are mostly for EBC and OBC caste groups and that Nitish rarely holds functions in upper caste-dominated areas.

The fact that Nitish fielded a Bhumihar candidate could work to Lalu’s advantage if he manages to use that to bring the Rajputs and the Yadavs together. The Rajputs are among the upper castes already disgruntled with Nitish,and three of the RJD’s four MPs are now Rajputs.

Lalu had been in the wilderness for months and Nitish had stopped naming him in his public meetings. Now,Nitish said,“Some people are getting too excited with victory. It is a one-off victory.”

Lalu said,“Nitish had asked people to vote for his candidate if they are happy with his work. Does the Maharajganj result then not mean people are not happy with Nitish?”

Other than the upper castes,another disgruntled constituency is that of 2.5 lakh contract teachers,over 9,000 of them in Maharajganj. They have been demanding higher pay and regularisation,something Lalu has been promising them if his RJD is voted to power.

Also disgruntled are JD-U members,including MLAs and MLCs,who keep complaining that bureaucrats pay them no attention. The day before the result,a JD-U worker in Goriakothi predicted,“We are losing by a huge margin. Even some JD-U workers campaigned for the RJD,for the block development and circle officers never listen to us.”