History repeats itself... BJP loses in Bihar

Uday Basu Kolkata, | 09 November, 2015: In a way, history repeated itself in Bihar on Sunday when the JD(U)-RJD-Congress combine won a landslide victory in the Assembly poll trouncing the BJP-led NDA.

For, it had been in Bihar in October 1990 that then BJP iron man LK Advani’s rath that was touring the country fanning communal passion was halted by Lalu Yadav who was the state chief minister.

And now it is the Nitish-Lalu duo that has stopped a similar if not more vicious march of communal politics by the triumvirate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his lieutenant and party president Amit Shah and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.

The BJP’s defeat is not only a resounding slap on its communal agenda Rs hidden or open Rs, but also on the leadership and style of functioning of Mr Modi who has turned everyone else in the party into virtual ciphers concentrating all powers in his own hand and effectively sending to vanvas the party’s tall leaders such as Mr Advani, Mr Murli Manohar Joshi and Yaswant Sinha.

In one massive and stunning blow to the Sangh Parivar Bihar has once again shown how the country can contain communal politics. If Mr Bhagwat raked up the issue of reservation in a desperate attempt to capture power in Bihar, the BJP president and other leading lights of the Sangh Parivar pulled out all the stops to polarise votes on the basis of religion.

The BJP’s rout in Bihar is the outcome of Mr Modi’s lip-service to his much vaunted development agenda and his surrender through a deafening silence to the RSS’s communal agenda. He failed to honour his electoral pledges such as filling the pockets of the poor with lakhs of rupees and creating millions of jobs, while he has done nothing against his party’s top leaders and ministers facing corruption charges.

What is worse, Mr Modi let the communal leaders of his party and the Sangh Parivar have a free run and spread the poison of religious intolerance for electoral gain and creating social instability. Mr Bhagwat, on his part, acted a bid too hastily in his bid to hijack governance by Mr Modi and foist the RSS’s communal agenda on the nation.

That is why the Prime Minister was made to address a record number of over two dozen election meetings in Bihar as if he was the chief ministerial candidate, while the party spent staggering resources during poll campaign. But he had no word against the killings and threats against those of different religious affiliations.

The voters in Bihar could see through the game of the triumvirate and so they gave an overwhelming mandate against them and the politics of communal divide.

Mr Yadav shrewdly played second fiddle to Mr Kumar because he didn’t want to let the BJP take advantage of a divided Opposition and he has reaped the maximum benefit with his party bagging the highest number of seats.

A resurgent Opposition with the Nitish-Lalu combine taking the centre-stage will now take on the Modi-Shah-Bhagwat troika in national politics with renewed vigour.