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Friday, Feb 18, 2005

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Imponderables in Bihar

By Vidya Subrahmaniam

Which way will the cookie crumble in the Bihar Assembly election? The exit polls have predicted a hung house, setting off a game of permutations and combinations in party offices. In the 2000 Assembly election, all calculations went awry and the Rashtriya Janata Dal made a triumphant return.

Nonetheless, it is a perception across the State that this time the Rashtriya Janata Dal alliance will see an erosion in its vote share. Assuming this happens, who forms the next Government will be decided by two things. The extent of the RJD's decline and who benefits from it: The Bharatiya Janata Party-Janata Dal (United) alliance or the Congress-Lok Jan Shakti Party Alliance. But there are other factors to consider: The presence of rebels leading to the likely emergence of a fairly large bloc of Independents and Ram Vilas Paswan's refusal to support either Lalu Prasad or the BJP-JD(U) Alliance.

Guesstimating the final shape of the Assembly is a hazardous business then, and more so for a journalist who has spent all of seven days on the campaign trail. Besides, previous elections have shown that disenchanted voters do not always desert the parties they previously supported. A recent example of this is the 2004 Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh. The widely-held belief before the election here was that Chief Minister Mulayam Singh would suffer heavy losses on account of large-scale transfer of Muslim votes to the Congress. Yet a survey done by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies showed that 47 per cent of Muslims voted for the Samajwadi Party as against only 14 per cent for the Congress. Again, in election after election in Bihar, analysts have tended to predict a split in Mr, Prasad's legendary "Muslim-Yadav" vote. In the 2000 Assembly election, pundits and pollsters alike foresaw a giant NDA wave.

However, it must be admitted that this time the disaffection against the Rabri Devi Government is on scale not seen previously. The one phrase that comes up again and again in conversation with voters across the State is "parivartan (change)." Worryingly for the Prasads, the mood for change appears to cut across caste and religious lines. Said Aslam Raza of Madarsa Faizane Raza, Kotwali Chowk in Madhubani: "We used to blindly vote for the RJD. Today we are a disillusioned lot. My teachers are not paid, and we are not able to marry off our daughters. Yes, there is aman (communal peace) in this regime. But how long can we live on that?" Adds Naushad, a resident of Motihari in East Champaran district, "It is necessary for the RJD to lose at least once." At Behitpur in Sarai Ranjan, Ranjit Kumar Yadav says that his community will not back the RJD in the emphatic manner it used to as "Lalu has done nothing for us."

To be sure, there are voices of moderation too. Maulana Nizamuddin of Imarat Sharia in Phulwarisharif in Patna extols Mr. Prasad's record on secularism. But it is also a fact that Bihar has seen little development under the Prasad couple. He feels that the Muslim vote for the RJD will decline but not to an extent where the party is defeated.

Muslims are hearing out Mr. Paswan to see if he can be a secular alternative to Mr. Prasad. Mohammad Wasim Akhtar attended two successive meetings at the sports complex in Motihari, the first by the RJD chief and the second by Mr. Paswan. He told The Hindu : " Most Muslims I know do not want to vote the RJD. But if they feel that the division in votes will help the BJP, then they will forget Paswan and return to Lalu."

Much also depends on whether the Congress and the LJP have been able to chip away at the NDA's upper caste support. This section had watched Sonia Gandhi to see if she would announce a clean break with the RJD. Ms. Gandhi's ambivalence and the BJP's concerted effort to show the RJD and the Congress as one unit appear to have to arrested the upper caste migration to the Congress.

Should the Congress-LJP combine turn out to have cut into the RJD's Muslim-Backward vote but not the NDA's upper caste support, the RJD could be in trouble. The irony will be felt more sharply if the Congress and the LJP should end up as losers in terms of seats but spoilers for the RJD.

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