Bihar Assembly polls: Opposition in bad shape

With the announcement of the election schedule, Bihar is set for the country’s first major election during the Covid-19 pandemic. The election will be held in three phases from October 28, with the last round on November 7. Holding elections in a pandemic environment is very challenging and the Election Commission has launched efforts to make the election as much Covid-proof as possible. It has said that necessary arrangements will be made, including the dispatch of masks, sanitisers, gloves etc, and there will be guidelines for campaigning, voting and counting, which will ensure the safety of voters, campaigners and officials. The campaign will now pick up but it will be less lively and devoid of the usual noise and frenzy. But the elections are important because of the political prominence of the state and as an experiment in how they can be conducted in these times.

There are major issues on which the election will be fought. The record of Nitish Kumar’s JD(U)-BJP government, especially its handling of the pandemic, the experience of about 25 lakh migrant workers who have returned from other states, unemployment, a broken state economy aggravated by the pandemic, the impact of floods on very large numbers of families and the crisis in the farm sector will be important issues to be highlighted in the campaign. These are all issues on which the state government and the ruling coalition will be on the defensive. Nitish Kumar’s reputation as the “sushasan babu” has taken a beating on these and other issues. But he remains the most popular leader, with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Lalu Prasad in jail. The BJP, which is the junior partner in the ruling coalition but has higher ambitions, has endorsed Nitish as the leader. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have to do some heavy lifting in the campaign, though it will be virtual. The alliance between the JD(U), the BJP and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) led by Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, has the electoral arithmetic on its side, though there are still unresolved issues of seat-sharing among them. There is, in fact, an acrimonious relationship between the JD(U) and the LJP, in which Ram Vilas Paswan’ son Chirag Paawan is the rising leader. The junior Paswan has openly criticised Nitish Kumar and the JD(U).

But the opposition, which is mainly the RJD-Congress combine, is in a bad shape. Lalu Prasad’ son Tejaswi Yadav has not been able to establish his leadership. The Congress has steadily declined in the state and has no visible leader. The opposition combine should have a credible leadership and an agenda if its challenge to the ruling coalition has to have any impact.