Political realignment, desertions rule Bihar politics ahead of Assembly election

With Bihar Assembly elections nearing, the shifting sands of loyalties have shown signs of a political realignment. On Thursday, when former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's party Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) decided to walk out of the grand alliance (Mahagathbandhan), speculations of him performing another somersault and going back to NDA were thick in the air.

Manjhi, a former JDU leader, was made the chief minister of the state in 2014 by Nitish Kumar who was shocked by the party’s devastating show in the general elections.

But Manjhi rebelled and quit the party after he was forced by Kumar to vacate the CM’s chair. Then he formed the Hindustani Awam Morcha and joined the NDA bandwagon against the rival Nitish-led camp of JDU, RJD and Congress in 2015. Again, he quit the NDA in 2018 and allied with RJD-Congress again, and in the meantime, Nitish Kumar's JDU had gone back to the NDA camp.

It is still not clear whether he will now merge his party with JDU or have some kind of agreement. An alliance with Manjhi will help Nitish Kumar’s ‘ati pichchda' (EBC) and Mahadalit pitch. Manjhi belongs to the Mushhar (mouse eater) community of Scheduled Castes, which is spread across the state with little political representation.

Earlier on Monday, a former senior minister in Nitish Kumar government, Shyam Razak joined RJD after he was 'expelled' from JDU. Incidentally, he quit the Lalu Prasad Yadav party 11 years ago, despite being a close confidante of Prasad in 2009.

On joining RJD, Razak said, “I have never compromised with the principles of social justice and secularism which we learnt from our leader Lalu Prasad.”

Razak, a prominent leader from Extremely Backward Classes, belonging to Washerman (dhobi) caste, is expected to help Tejashwi Yadav in widening the MY (Muslim Yadav) social base of RJD.

Five RJD MLCs had joined JDU in June and now three expelled RJD MLAs are on the way to Nitish Kumar’s party.

All indications are that Bihar, before the assembly elections, can see many old foes turning friends and vice versa as leaders seek their pound of flesh in seat sharing and want to settle old scores.

While Nitish Kumar is the CM face of NDA, there is a broad agreement on Tejashwi Yadav leading the Opposition pack. Though occasional rumblings over the CM face are heard in both sides.

Former Union Minister in the first Modi government, Upendra Kushwaha, who had in 2018 joined the United Progressive Alliance led by RJD was also a CM aspirant till some time back.

The new surprise is the strident stand taken by LJP which is led by Ram Vilas Paswan and his son Chirag Paswan, against Nitish Kumar despite belonging to the same NDA camp.

However, JDU general secretary KC Tyagi is dismissive of the statement of Paswan duo. He sees it as an attempt to extract the maximum number of seats. In each of Chirag Paswan's attack against Kumar, he swore by the BJP and has even been met top BJP leadership, adding fuel to the rumour that BJP is backing LJP to keep Nitish Kumar in check.

Of the Lalu Prasad, Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan trio, who were the faces of socialist politics in Bihar, the first two have become CM and Paswan, owing to age, will be probably dropped from Modi’s Cabinet at some point.

Bihar assembly elections is turning out to be an unpredictable affair. The politics in the state has three behemoths: RJD, Nitish Kumar and BJP. And parties like LJP and HAM have increased the intensity of the battle. BJP can sniff their chances in case of a triangular fight, but if any two sides among the behemoths decide to join hands, the fight will be turn out to be a cakewalk. As has been the case with Indian politics over the years, a surprise may be in the offing.