Post-Delhi fiasco, BJP to focus outside votebank in Bihar

Bihar is not Delhi, BJP leaders say, but there is acknowledgement in the party that the Aam Admi Party (AAP) sweep has underlined the need to focus on reaching out to those outside its committed vote bank and ensure that the anti-BJP vote does not get consolidated.

A day after the Delhi drubbing, party leaders refuted that Oppostion unity in Bihar could amalgamate the anti-BJP vote, saying every state has its own political dynamics. While the BJP has distanced itself from the political developments within Bihar's ruling JD-U, it is eyeing chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's mahadalit vote, in a state where caste equations influence the voting pattern.

However, the lesson from Delhi for any election, including Bihar, was that the BJP should concentrate on winning over voters outside the party's traditional support base, a senior leader said. In the run-up to the Lok Sabha election, Narendra Modi, then the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, had reached out to a larger audience -- first time voters, youth, women and the poor -- going beyond the party's conventional voters. The BJP had managed to cut across caste and class barriers in the Lok Sabha election. In Delhi this time, the BJP has retained its vote base at 32.2 per cent, but was reduced to three seats in the 70-member assembly.

It has also sunk in that consolidation of anti-BJP votes, in which tactical voting takes place, would hurt the party. Of the three seats the BJP won in Delhi, in two it won because the anti-BJP vote was split between the AAP and Congress.

BJP general secretary Ram Lal (Organisation) has been meeting the Delhi party candidates to assess the situation, sources said. Party President Amit Shah is away in Gujarat for his son's wedding and any organisational expansion will take place only after he returns on February 15. Shah is likely to meet the Delhi leaders once he is back, sources said.

The party has already got down to focusing on its next electoral challenge-- Bihar. While BJP leaders maintain that the crisis in JD-U was an internal matter of the party, it is keeping its cards close to its chest on its strategy during a floor test in the state assembly.

Besides, the BJP neither wants to give Nitish Kumar an opportunity to get sympathy nor antagonise the 20 per cent mahadalit support of Manjhi. If the JD-U and RJD unite, it could get Yadav and Muslim vote. The BJP is hoping that the mahadalit vote would turn against Nitish Kumar for targeting Manjhi, if the latter leaves the JD-U. As of now, the BJP is restricting itself to attacking Kumar.

"The BJP has nothing to do with this (crisis in JD-U). We will take our decision the floor of the House," said party spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain when asked which faction of the JDU the BJP will support.

Party leaders deny that the Delhi verdict could have any impact in Bihar. "There is no comparison. Unlike Kejriwal who is an untested leader, both Lalu Kumar Yadav and Nitish Kumar have ruled Bihar for years," said state party spokesperson Devesh Kumar.