#dnaEdit: Ally or perish

The pre-poll alliance between the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Janata Dal (U) and the decision to name Nitish Kumar as the chief ministerial candidate is clearly driven by their common interest in stalling the BJP’s ambition to form the next Bihar government. While the tie-up makes electoral sense in preventing the division of anti-BJP votes, there are also ominous signs of the alliance walking a thin line — especially if the two Janata offshoots let their inherent factional tendencies spin out of control. Such a turn of events would only benefit the BJP in the long run. The 1996-98 United Front governments — united with the sole objective of keeping the BJP out of power and perpetually riven by infighting — ultimately helped the BJP to gain in public esteem. Back then, BJP’s ambitions in Bihar were confined to being a junior partner in their alliance with Nitish and George Fernandes. Cut to 2014, the BJP under Narendra Modi had consolidated its upper caste votebank and weaned away a sizeable number of OBC and Dalit voters from the Samajwadis, posing a direct political challenge to both Nitish and Lalu. The socialist duo, who had a bitter falling out in 1993, appear to have reconciled to their diminished support-bases and the need for a political alliance if they are to counter the BJP juggernaut in Bihar.

The August bypolls last year when the RJD-JD(U)-Congress combine won six of ten seats has been bandied as an example of what such an alliance can gain  electorally. But the bypolls were a limited exercise involving a fewer number of seats.

There are, however, several other political minefields that must be crossed between now and the elections, due in October. Though the alliance has been sealed, the same cannot be said for seat-sharing. Nitish’s contention that JD(U) won 115 seats in the 2010 assembly polls has been dismissed by Lalu citing the RJD’s first or second place finish in 145 assembly segments against the JD(U) in 43 segments during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Even Nitish’s claims to being named the alliance’s chief ministerial candidate were vigorously contested by the RJD despite Lalu declaring that neither he nor his family are claimants for the top post. In this context, selling the alliance to second and third rung leaders and the party cadre — who have far more to lose while accommodating erstwhile rivals — will get tougher as the elections draw closer. The seat-sharing hitches in Bihar could exacerbate if the Congress drives a hard bargain with Nitish and Lalu. With Rahul Gandhi aggressively combating the Modi government’s policies in recent weeks, the Congress may punch above its weight.
It is interesting in this context that  the Congress and the Samajwadi Party have played an important role in bringing Lalu and Nitish together. It is evident that Rahul Gandhi’s backing for Nitish denied Lalu the satisfaction of delaying Nitish’s projection as CM candidate till the last moment. The SP, despite scuppering the proposed merger of the “Janata parivar”, realises that a BJP victory in Bihar may galvanise the party in neighbouring UP, which goes to the polls in 2017. Crucial to the prospects of the Nitish-Lalu alliance is the way Dalits and the extremely backward classes will vote in the coming polls. Nitish’s gambit of anointing Jiten Ram Manjhi as CM has backfired. Manjhi now threatens to undercut Nitish in the very same communities Nitish had so assiduously wooed. The BJP, under Sushil Modi, can lay an equal claim to the improved governance that Bihar was witness to since 2005. The task before Nitish and Lalu, then, is to prove that their alliance is not merely opportunistic, but also competent in providing good governance. The seat-sharing talks in the coming days will reveal more about the character of this alliance and its fragilities.