Has the aura faded?

 

 

Last month’s Bihar bypoll results were a huge setback for chief minister Nitish Kumar. The political combine of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD and Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP wrested nine of the 18 seats contested, leaving only five for the ruling JD(U)-BJP alliance. The Congress won two seats. Most of these 18 seats were previously with the ruling NDA alliance.

So is Nitish Kumar’s magic waning? On the face of it, if these results are an indication, the CM would be hard-pressed to retain power when Bihar goes to the polls next year. But political equations in the state are complex and with the Opposition likely to remain splintered, Nitish might just sail through.

The question that is being asked is: what went wrong in the bypolls? Earlier this year, the NDA alliance had won 32 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. RJD-LJP managed only four. Do the bypoll reverses mean the electorate is losing faith in Nitish four years after he stormed to power, ending 15 years of the RJD regime?

Political observers aren't ready to read too much into the results although they accept that several aspects of Nitish’s rule have led to disenchantment.

When Nitish pulled off a resounding victory in the November 2005 Assembly elections, the people’s expectations were very high indeed. They wanted to see an end to the misrule that marked the the Lalu-Rabri tenure.

On many counts, Nitish lived up to the expectations. He put his best foot forward on the law and order front. Criminals and musclemen were quickly brought to book. Perpetrators of the massacres that occurred in the past were punished irrespective of caste and political considerations. Bihar saw 6,839 convictions in 2006, 9653 in 2007, 12,007 in 2008 and 10,125 in 2009 (as of September).

In a 60-page progress report on his government’s performance, Nitish claims: "On the law and order front, the task was to build confidence among people and in the law enforcing machinery. We succeeded to a great extent in taking out the fear factor from the minds of people, both from inside and outside the state... Women can be seen moving around in cities and towns till late in the evening. A number of national and international events are taking place here, which is a clear indication that we have been able to instill confidence among people".

The Khagaria massacre, which claimed 16 lives in the first week of October this year, was the biggest blot on Nitish Kumar’s relatively ‘peaceful’ four-year track record in a caste-conscious state. But In this case, too, Nitish acted with alacrity and suspended the Khagaria SP and DSP for dereliction of duty. The police have already arrested the alleged mastermind and are claiming to have cracked the case on the basis of the interrogation. Development, too, has been on Nitish’s priority list. The NDA government has built and repaired thousands of kilometres of roads and hundreds of bridges all across the state. “Earlier it used to take more than three hours to reach Patna from Arrah, which is just 60 km away. Now it takes just an hour because the road has been widened and re-laid,” says Vijay Manjul, an Arrah restaurant owner.

"If I have not brought the moon for the people of Bihar, I have certainly made Bihar a place where they can live and pursue their vocation fearlessly. This is my biggest achievement," Nitish said while releasing the progress report on his government’s four years in power. He completed four years in office on November 24, 2009.

The RJD-LJP combine has charged the Nitish government with corruption, misrule and criminalisation of power. "The people of the state have declared that the Nitish government has failed on all fronts," state RJD president Abdul Bari Siddiqui said while talking to TSI from Patna.

The RJD has asserted that reports of the CAG have exposed the hollowness of the claim of good governance. "Corruption has surfaced in most of the state's departments and the CM has failed to rein it in," RJD general secretary Ram Kripal Yadav told TSI. The RJD has released a “chargesheet” against the government.

Ram Kripal said the CM had told the Assembly that there would be more than 1,44,000 crore rupees of investment in the state, but there is nothing on the ground. The NCP has also released a “Black Paper” against the NDA government chastising it for widespread corruption and misrule. NCP leader Tariq Anwar has said that Nitish Kumar has been a complete failure as chief minister.

Countering the Opposition, the CM asserts that Bihar is poised to be one of the leading states in India. “The central government and other state governments have not only applauded some of the innovative schemes started by us but have adopted them as well,” Nitish says.

The Bihar government has been lauded by none other than the Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who publicly said the state had made progress in the infrastructure, education and health sectors in the past four years. If Bihar kept up the momentum, it would achieve 8-9 per cent economic growth, he added. Four years back, Bihar was in total financial disarray. The Plan size was a meagre Rs 2000 crore to Rs 3000 crore. It was scaled up to Rs 12,500 crore last year and is expected to go up to Rs 16,000 crore in the next financial year. The NDA government virtually took a lead in extending 50 percent reservation to women in panchayats in 2006.

On the negative side, Nitish has, by his own admission, failed to control corruption. Lower level malfeasance still plagues the system, though he has introduced several-e-governance measures like e-filing of taxes to eliminate “inspector raj”. Now he wants to make the existing laws more effective and has sent to the Union home mistry a Bill seeking setting up of special courts. The Centre is yet to send it back with Presidential assent.

He has also failed to improve the power situation and the highways in the state. He blames the 'biased' policies of the Centre for this situation. He has written several letters to the PM pointing out instances of injustice.

The Centre has refused to provide coal linkages for the new thermal power stations till the 12th Plan period. Moreover, the Central Water Commission has imposed a blanket ban on the use of water from rivers of the Ganga basin for thermal power stations. So this means that Bihar can't generate electricity on its own nor can it expand its existing thermal power stations for the next six to seven years.

The flood in the Kosi embankment area this year affected 15 districts of the state. The opposition has lashed out at the Nitish government on this issue. Paswan accused the government of failing to handle the flood situation and repair river embankments despite warnings. He also pilloried the administration for not providing adequate relief to the flood victims.

In his report card, Nistish has pointed to the fact that Bihar has been adjudged the best state for e-governance and Patna has been earned the second place after Delhi for initiating commerce and business activities by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.

Bihar’s electoral arithmetic is complicated. Nitish knows that elections will be fought and won on the basis of caste and creed. Thus he has taken many steps to strengthen his vote bank. Nitish has managed to counter Lalu Prasad’s MY (Muslim–Yadav combination) card by using the HM (Hindu-Muslim) strategy. He is trying to woo the minorities by promising to ensure teaching in Urdu language in all government schools in the state and appointment of Urdu teachers. He has also allotted land for a branch of Aligarh Muslim University, which has angered RSS and BJP. He is also promoting “Pasmanda Samaj”, who are considered Dalits among Muslims.

Nitish has used the “Mahadalit card” to dent the vote bank of rivals like Paswan. He has launched a slew of welfare schemes for the “Dalits among the Dalits” to consolidate his base among them. His strategy appears to be paying off. He is also wooing dissidents and party deserters.

Lalu cannot be written off. But the Congress is in no mood to reverse its go-it-alone strategy. Jagdish Tytler, the party in-charge of Bihar, has announced that the party will not align with the RJD in the next polls. After tasting success in UP, Rahul Gandhi has set his sights on Bihar, where the Congress has been out of power of 20 years.

In the next Assembly elections, Opposition unity seems unlikely. Moreover, the electorate would be loath to let Bihar slide back into the kind of anarchy and backwardness that the state had to confront during the previous regime. Therefore, a second term for Nitish Kumar seems a distinct possibility.