I usually write blogs around the time of major elections in India be it state or national. But two seismic events in Indian politics over the past couple of weeks: Nitish’s return to the NDA & Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat forced me :) to type up a midseason blog one on the current state of affairs in Indian politics.
Nitish Kumar along with Lalu Prasad Yadav were both students at Patna University when they joined Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement in 1975 & both went to jail during the Emergency period. In 1990 Janta Dal came to power in Bihar & Lalu was elected as the CM. Nitish Kumar was dubbed as Lalu Prasad's "Chanakya" helping in strategizing the Janta Dal win. With Lalu’s rise to power, the Yadav’s (caste to which Lalu belonged) began to dominate all aspects of life in Bihar from reservations to government contracts to real estate to official IAS/IPS postings, etc. Soon the backward castes other than the Yadavs such as Koeris & Kurmis (caste to which Nitish belongs) realized that this had led to the marginalization of the non-Yadav OBC(Other Backward Classses) castes. In 1994 in protest of this new kind of discrimination, Nitish walked out of the Janata Dal to form the Samta Party along with George Fernandes. Lalu once entangled in the fodder scam decided to break away from the erstwhile Janata Dal & formed his own local outfit called RJD (Rashtriya Janta Dal). Nitish was routed by Lalu when he tried to fight the election in 1995. Towards the end of 1990’s he gravitated towards a coalition with BJP. His Samta Party later merged with another old Janta Dal alumni Shard Yadav’s outfit to become his current party Janta Dal - United [ JD (U) ]. He got elected as MP & was inducted in the Vajpayee cabinet first as minister of agriculture & later as railways & surface transport minister. In 2000 when Bihar voted again, NDA was still unable to break Lalu’s stranglehold on Bihar. Finally in late 2005 (during a 2nd election within space of 6 months as 1st one in 2005 ended in hung house) the BJP & JD(U) were victorious at last, ending the 15 year reign of RJD rule in Bihar. Nitish had promised to end the so called “jungle raj” under Lalu which had led to rampant lawlessness & corruption especially by the RJD party rank & file. This was best epitomized by Lalu Prasad Yadav himself who was embroiled in the fodder scam. During this time there was also was politicization of all fields by Yadavs which led to corruption where a few enriched at the expense of the remaining causing Bihar’s stagnation under the Lalu regime. Elections in India are always a complex math in alliances. Unlike Lalu who nurtured his famous Muslim – Yadav combination, Nitish’s Kurmi base is very small (~6% of Bihar’s population). For political survival he knew he had to expand his base while breaking Lalu’s to have any success. Koeri’s (another small caste left behind in the Yadav years) were a natural ally. He also reached out to various Extremely Backward Class Mahadalit castes. The Pasmanda caste of Muslims in Bihar are overwhelmingly the descendants of middle and lower caste Hindus who had converted to Islam in different phases of history. However, most of the benefits when Lalu was in power were gotten by the upper caste Muslims. (Yes even Muslims have caste hierarchy which I didn’t know earlier as one usually associates castes with Hindus). Ali Anwar established the Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (PMM) to fight for the rights of these Pasmanda Muslims. Sensing an opportunity to further chip away at Lalu’s alliance Nitish wooed them over to his fold & rewarded Ali Anwar by nominating him to the Rajya Sabha in 2006.
Nitish worked hard to overcome this gross neglect of Bihar under the previous regime & provided a good account of his governance. His good work led the NDA government [BJP + JD(U)] to win ~80% of seats during the next election in 2010. Later that year when BJP hosted its national executive meeting in Patna, Modi announced a 5 crore donation (also with an advertisement in newspapers) to Bihar to help with flood relief. Stung by this so called promotion by Modi, a fuming Nitish cancelled his dinner invite for the senior BJP leadership in protest. In June 2013 he walks out of the NDA alliance as BJP was soon going to announce Modi as its PM candidate for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2014. Nitish on the record mentioned about the fear among minorities pertaining to Modi as the reason for ending his long relationship with the BJP. But many suspect that the real reason was that he had his eye on a higher prize: Prime Minister of India. He knew that Congress wouldn’t return to power & that NDA which had been underperforming in previous 2 elections would continue to do so which would lead to a hung parliament. In that case he could emerge as the “compromise PM” candidate with support from a group of like-minded regional parties with support from either of the big national parties. Modi however swept the 2014 election & dashed his faint hopes of becoming PM. Facing an assertive BJP in 2015 he simply made mends with Lalu’s RJD in 2015 & established the so called Mahagathbandhan along with Congress to remain in power. Lalu was eager to get back in action after 10 years in the political wilderness. All the years of constantly bashing Lalu for Bihar’s misfortune were forgotten in an instant. In late 2015 Bihar bucked the trend of state after state going saffron with the Mahagathbandhan sweeping the hustings & Nitish again being elected as CM. Many then knew that despite the huge success of this alliance it would not last as Lalu & Nitish were as different as chalk & cheese. Even though RJD won more seats than JD (U) Lalu honored his commitment to Nitish to let him continue as CM. However Nitish was helpless to stop Lalu from installing his two sons (political novices) into the cabinet. They got plum ministries and the heir apparent to Lalu, Tejashwi Yadav was made Deputy CM. Nitish as CM was supposed to be the man in charge of running the government & controlling its future destiny. However over time Nitish grew vary of the interference from Lalu. Lalu once even mentioned about the need for his generation to retire & pass the buck to the next generation i.e. an euphemism for Nitish to make way for Lalu’s son Tejashwi (f.y.i. Nitish’s son by the way doesn’t take part in politics). He knew that sooner or later Lalu was going to come for his “pound of flesh” & force him to install his son as CM of Bihar. Gangster Mohammad Shahabuddin when released from prison undermined Nitish’s authority by openly saying that Nitish was a CM only because of "circumstances" & Lalu was his leader. In the meanwhile BJP with its machinations on ripping apart this alliance had Sushil Kumar Modi (who was Deputy CM to Nitish in their days together) dig up information on the Lalu family in Patna regarding shady real estate deals with proxy shell companies. Central investigating agencies in Delhi like CBI, ED, etc. probed dealings when Lalu was Railway minister during his tenure in UPA-I. All this was done to make life for Nitish unbearable in the Mahagathbandhan from which he had only a single recourse for his political survival – come back to BJP/NDA fold. Nitish asked the Yadav’s to explain the charges against them to preserve his government’s clean image. Lalu simply brushed them aside saying they are “farzi” (fraudulent) charges & this was done by Modi government to harass his family as part of political vendetta. Together with this to add to Lalu’s already expanding list of troubles the fodder scam case was reopened against Lalu. In a superb inside scoop by Marya Shakil from CNN-News 18, Nitish quietly reached out to an old friend Arun Jaitley (Finance Minister) to study provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2016. Going through it he realized that in the cases against the Yadavs it was checkmate.
Nitish who had carefully crafted his image on being an honest politician & efficient administrator was now seeing his image & credibility taking a hit from all sides due to his association with RJD. The proverbial “final straw that broke the camel’s back” came when Lalu & his aide Prem Gupta met few BJP leaders in secret in Delhi to get “help” regarding all these cases against the Yadav clan. It was alleged by government insiders in Delhi that Lalu even offered to pull down the Bihar government if need be to make sure that the cases are put away. By Indian standards where today’s enemy is tomorrow’s friend Lalu was never going to align with BJP after pulling down Nitish. He has consistently been one of most staunch anti BJP guy right from the day he got L.K. Advani arrested during Rath Yatra in Bihar in 1990 perpetually endearing him to the Muslims in Bihar. BJP had also nothing to gain by this by seen to be aligning with RJD. This back door secret meeting completely shocked Nitish who could feel that the end was near & privately he asked Tejashwi (Lalu’s son) for resignation. RJD on cue from Lalu went into bunker mentality circling the wagons around their first family. Now even Nitish’s own partymen implored to cut ties before they go down with the sinking ship. Nitish usually has good intuition on when to pull the trigger on something. He waited for the exact day that Lalu would be out of the picture in Patna before pulling the plug on this alliance. On July 26th Lalu had to travel to court to Ranchi in neighboring Jharkhand for hearing in his corruption case which was to be held in the morning the next day. Lalu even cancelled his flight when Nitish resigned & instead decided to travel by road to stay longer in Patna. He however couldn’t just cancel his trip as otherwise he would be in contempt of court. Eventually late at night he had to go no matter how severe the crisis unfolding in Patna was. Things were moving at rapid pace in Patna where Nitish resigned, got congratulatory tweet from PM in an hour & got BJP support with matter of few hours. They jointly went to the Raj Bhavan at night went to stake claim to form new government barely hours after the fall of the previous one. Lalu being on the road could not effectively direct his RJD party men over the phone like he could otherwise in person on the ground in Patna. He asked Tejashwi to go to Raj Bhavan late at night to stake claim to form the next government as the single largest party in the assembly but the game by then was well & truly up. This led to angry accusations from both Lalu that Nitish had back stabbed him & this quick patch up with BJP was a “fixed” game. But some of the blame lies with Lalu himself. This isn’t the first case in Indian politics & it certainly won’t be the last one in Indian politics where “putramoh” blinded a father to the happenings around him. Everyone who followed politics closely including yours truly could notice that Nitish even though he walked away from BJP, in past couple of years did drop the subtlest of hints from time to time about possibly joining hands with them in future (support for demonetization, Ram Nath Kovind as presidential candidate, etc.). I always had a lively discussion with my sources/BJP supporters (who had inside knowledge in BJP) as to when was Nitish coming back to NDA fold. These regular dropping of hints by Nitish were to keep Lalu in check from subverting his authority by implicitly threatening to walk away from alliance at any time if he felt that his power was eroding. Many have said that the whole Tejashwi episode was simply an excuse for Nitish to take the “moral high ground” to walk away. Lalu if he saw through this ruse could have simply asked his son to resign & easily installed one of cronies in his place. This would take away any pretense that Nitish might have to break the alliance. Also one must remember the fact that the ministry had two of Lalu’s sons. If one did resign on moral grounds, Lalu did have another son who would still be in cabinet & so would still be able to wield power in cabinet by proxy. But Lalu was too strongly bonded by family loyalty & sacrificed his party’s future probably at expense of his family (another recurring theme in Indian politics). Part of the blame also should lie at the feet of the Congress party. Rahul Gandhi claimed after the breakup that he knew that Nitish would walk away 3 months before it actually happened. This so called declaration only makes it look worse that as the 3rd party in the alliance despite knowing the possible outcome way in advance could not play a more aggressive part as a mediator in the Lalu-Nitish dispute. Nitish even visited Rahul to impress upon Lalu to move Tejashwi aside but nothing came of that meeting.
Nitish has been probably called everything under the sun for his latest flip flop: opportunist, naked pragmatist, traitor, turncoat, amoral, backstabber, etc. I would much prefer the moniker survivalist. Remember Nitish for all his prowess as a highly regarded CM (by all sides alike) & one who has been running one of India’s largest states is not political heavyweight who could win mandates by himself. He has always required an alliance partner to come to power. As I explained earlier he doesn’t have a huge natural social/caste base which can project him to power automatically. That’s why over his political career he has run the whole gamut of political spectrum as allies: from far left with CPI(ML) in 1995 to far right with BJP. Nitish rightly mentioned some time ago both privately & publicly that to oppose Modi the opposition has to come up with a coherent strategy & plan. The current plan of opposition to have sporadic outbursts is not working. Simply opposing Modi for whatever steps he takes is not a strategy that is resonating with the electorate, something learned by Arvind Kejriwal the hard way over the past couple of years. His aim post 2015 was that opposition unites which can then challenge Modi in 2019 for which he said that Congress has to lead the charge as it was single largest opposition party. Rahul the reluctant leader has not yet been aggressive in setting the tone for the united opposition to counter Modi with a clear strategy. Nor was he going to consider declaring someone like Nitish who had the image & gravitas for being a credible alternative to Modi in 2019 as the leader of the opposition parties. So with the opposition being scattered, clues less & rudderless he saw the BJP juggernaut winning election after election including UP. He knew that the opposition was in no position to challenge BJP’s hegemony any time soon & decided it to jump back to the BJP/NDA fold. Nitish might have once called for Sangh Mukth Bharat but read the tea leaves correctly that aligning with BJP was politically expedient right now as the more likely Mukth Bharat in near future could be “Opposition Mukth Bharat”. He put his national ambitions in the cold freezer for now & decided to instead focus on continuing his rule in Bihar. If BJP somehow stumbles in 2019 which looks highly unlikely as of today he can always pitch himself as the “compromise PM” candidate who would be acceptable to both BJP & other regional parties. Secondly another major factor in Nitish’s decision is caste. The RJD (Yadavs) & JD(U) (Mahaldalits & Non Yadav OBC’s alliance was always an awkward to begin with. Yadav’s (now once back in power) being the more dominant caste had cases of extortion, land grabbing, harassment, corruption, etc. many of which were against Mahadalits & other OBC’s. This as I mentioned earlier was one of the reasons for Nitish to break away in 1994. This manifested during the 2015 where the RJD won more seats due to the solid support for the alliance from Yadavs/Muslims but some of Nitish’s base were turned off with the alliance with Yadavs/RJD. The longer Nitish stayed in the alliance his support base which already was small to begin with would further erode. Modi’s demonetization which was very popular with the extremely poor was further shrinking his small support base among the poorest of the poor. This could easily lead to RJD becoming the more dominant in the next election in 2020. With JD(U) playing second fiddle to RJD, Lalu was likely to install his son as CM leading to possible irrelevance for Nitish. To counter this Nitish simply reverted to the older alliance with BJP/upper castes which formed a better chemistry than the uneasy alliance with Yadavs which was good arithmetic on paper but not good chemistry. His OBC/Mahadalit voter base will now come back but he is at risk of losing the Pasmanda Muslim vote (that I mentioned earlier) due to association with right wing BJP. Ali Anwar has already expressed displeasure at this alliance with BJP as has his fellow party man Sharad Yadav. If indeed there are defections this will weaken Nitish greatly compared to 2010. Nitish might have saved his skin by his “Ghar Wapasi” to the NDA fold but with the BJP being in a much dominant position now they can dictate terms to him.
I couldn’t just end the blog on just Bihar & had to write about the political events in my home state of Gujarat over the past one month.
Rajya Sabha elections are usually so called “done deals” where the result is usually known to most in advance. These are the boring exercises in Indian democracy. There is very little suspense as to the outcome as the voters are the MLA’s themselves (vs the electorate in Lok Sabha/Vidhan Sabha elections) who follow their own party whip on whom to vote for. Never before I my life had I seen the level of drama that was seen on August 8th over the 3rd Rajya Sabha seat in Gujarat. Rajya Sabha seats mostly get proportionally allocated in accordance with party’s strength in local Assembly. Since BJP controlled 119 seats & Congress 57 seats BJP was in line for 2 seats & Congress the one remaining seat. BJP nominated Amit Shah & Smriti Irani for the 2 seats while Congress nominated Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel. Rather than conceding the 3rd seat to Congress BJP’s master strategist Amit Shah went to work. Shankersinh Vaghela the ex-BJP leader who was with Congress for past 19 years on not getting declared as CM candidate for upcoming assembly elections rebelled & had 6 of his supporter MLA’s resign, thus bringing down the Congress’s effective strength to 51. He then had his relative file nomination for the Rajya Sabha seat as an independent that would get support from the remaining Congress rebels & outside support from BJP. Reports then started coming in of more possible defections from Congress to BJP. Congress wary of further defections then moved the remaining 44 loyal Congress legislators to Karnataka to avoid them being poached by BJP ahead of the vote. There were allegations from Congress about money & muscle power(the usual staples of horse trading in Indian politics) being deployed to engineer more cross voting from Congress MLA’s. Many wondered why the BJP & Amit Shah would expend so much energy & political capital for this solitary Rajya Sabha seat for which the odds were not stacked in their favor to begin with. The reasons are manifold as I will explain below.
1) Amit Shah has openly said many times that they were in the business of contesting & trying to win every single election be it national election or a low level nagarpalika election. Many a times in the past Rajya Sabha seats were simply a walkover for a distinguished leader of opposition as a courtesy. Now under Amit Shah no such courtesy is to be granted & BJP was going to follow a policy of “give up no quarter” to the opposition.
2) Despite majority in Lok Sabha , NDA doesn’t have majority in the Rajya Sabha which makes it hard to pass any important legislation. Even with Nitish’s JD (U) votes, BJP is still not close to majority & from time to time requires third parties like AIADMK, Biju Janta Dal & others to pass legislation. Hence to control Rajya Sabha winning every single seat matters a lot.
3) Ahmed Patel being a close confidante of Sonia Gandhi was supposed to have been a behind the scenes manager during the 10 years of UPA government. Amit Shah believes that Ahmed Patel was pulling the strings when he was booked in the police encounter cases & subsequently sent out of exile from Gujarat. Working to defeat Patel was to not only embarrass Sonia Gandhi & Congress party but also as political vendetta for all the legal hassles faced by Amit Shah.
On election night 43 of the 44 Cong MLA’s voted for Patel needing him to secure one more vote. There was suspense in the last few days leading upto the election as to how 3 of the other party MLA’s: 2 NCP (Sharad Pawar’s party) & JD(U) MLA’s would vote. The story on how the party instructions on whom to vote for kept constantly changing as there were internal power struggles between various factions of NCP & JD(U). In the end it is believed that one of the 3 casted the decisive vote that helped Patel sail through by the slimmest of margins. Cong initially unsure of the result hence complained to Election Commission about 2 of their rebel MLA’s showing their votes to BJP thus trying to get them disqualified. In the evening there were multiple Congress & BJP delegations reaching EC office to explain their stand & as to why these rebel MLA's should or shouldn't be disqualified. It was even jokingly mentioned that one point in evening that half of Modi’s cabinet was in the Election Commission’s office. Finally late at night the 2 Cong MLA’s votes were disqualified & Ahmed Patel declared the victor. In the end the 2 disqualified votes wouldn’t have changed the outcome but due to all sorts of claims by various MLA’s on all sides on how they allegedly voted or cross voted it wasn’t clear till EC declared that Patel had indeed won by the skin of his teeth. Cong did rightly celebrate a rare victory against the BJP after a long time but the euphoria from this victory is expected to be short lived due to the upcoming assembly elections by end of year. Ahmed Patel urged the party to rally to win the assembly elections but that comment sounds hollow due to current position of Gujarat Congress. Last time Congress won an election by itself in Gujarat was 32 years ago (1985) & last time it was in power in an alliance was 19 years ago (1998). Such a long time on the sidelines would have decimated any other political party. However due to the bipolar nature of politics in Gujarat means that they have simply survived by default. Most people would be shocked to know that in spite of their regular failings in recent elections they still get a little less than 40% of the overall vote. The huge 10% difference in their vote share vs BJP in a bipolar contest explains why BJP manages to capture approximately 2/3 of all assembly seats. They did have success in the panchayat elections in 2015 but that was due to the Patidar anger against BJP. One would think that this time around with a host of factors such as anti-incumbency for almost 20 years, absence of popular administrator like Modi from local scene & with the Patidar (Hardik Patel), Thakor (Alpesh Thakor) & Dalit (Jignesh Mevani) movements, Congress would be able to close the vote share gap & give BJP a serious run for its money. However Congress is riddled with massive factionalism to take any possible advantage of BJP’s weaknesses. Congress in Gujarat is a mix of erstwhile Congressmen, ex Janta Dal members & also ex BJP members like Shankersinh Vaghela. The multiple power centers do no good to the party at a time when Congress requires a strong campaigner who could resonate with the masses on why they should chose them over the BJP. Many lower Congressmen have privately groused that for the past few elections Shankersinh Vaghela, Shaktisinh Gohil, Bharathsinh Solanki & Arjun Modvadia play a round robin game among themselves. After leading Congress to a defeat one resigns & hands over the baton the next who then passes 3rd one & so on & so forth just among the four of them. This time around Shankersinh Vaghela tried to get the Congress high command to get the party to announce himself as the party’s CM candidate. Vaghela reportedly even had support of a majority of MLA’s in this regard. Vaghela an ex – BJP man knew the tactics of BJP & was a street fighter who could possibly give the BJP a tough fight this time around. But Vaghela believes that party high command especially Ahmed Patel was not in favor of declaring him as their CM candidate. Maybe it was his past RSS background or due to the pressure from other factions in the party. Vaghela like Nitish dropped enough hints about his displeasure in this regard. Congress party insiders convinced Patel that there was less than half a dozen MLA’s siding with him & if he left it wouldn’t be an issue. Realizing that he was getting nowhere with his demands Vaghela hit back at Ahmed Patel & the Congress party. Vaghela who himself is no stranger to defections broke the BJP in Gujarat in 1995 to form his own party to capture CM’s chair along with Cong help. Life came full circle when with the mass defections & resignations he brought down the strength of Cong MLA’s in the assembly. Only belatedly did Congress realize how badly it had miscalculated the strength of Vaghela’s support inside the party. Congress did move 44 MLA’s to Karnataka to avoid having them poached by BJP. But doing so when the state was hit with the worst floods in a decade caused very bad optics where MLA’s were holed up in a five star resort when at the same time people in rain affected districts were struggling to deal with the aftermath of floods. In the end the rebels & BJP together did made Patel sweat it out for his seat till the end but even though they were unsuccessful in defeating him the damage was already done. Ahmed Patel in the fight of his life was able to outfox his bete noir Amit Shah but as one Cong insider said that this was “pyrrhic victory” as the 1 Rajya Sabha seat came at cost of 14 MLA’s. Not for the first time in the recent past when Congress could have put up a good fight in a state where it had some favorable winds blowing it’s way, it could well end with an “own goal” . This most likely cost the Congress its best chance in decades of finally wresting power back from the BJP in Gujarat.
“Putramoh” & “Ghar Wapasi”
To better understand the events in Bihar over the last fortnight it is essential that one takes a look at history of Bihar’s top 2 politicians: Nitish Kumar & Lalu Prasad Yadav. As you know already by now (from my previous blogs) I mostly prefer to narrate history linearly i.e. chronologically. To tell you the truth I am never a big fan of movies that tell the story in “flashback mode”.Nitish Kumar along with Lalu Prasad Yadav were both students at Patna University when they joined Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement in 1975 & both went to jail during the Emergency period. In 1990 Janta Dal came to power in Bihar & Lalu was elected as the CM. Nitish Kumar was dubbed as Lalu Prasad's "Chanakya" helping in strategizing the Janta Dal win. With Lalu’s rise to power, the Yadav’s (caste to which Lalu belonged) began to dominate all aspects of life in Bihar from reservations to government contracts to real estate to official IAS/IPS postings, etc. Soon the backward castes other than the Yadavs such as Koeris & Kurmis (caste to which Nitish belongs) realized that this had led to the marginalization of the non-Yadav OBC(Other Backward Classses) castes. In 1994 in protest of this new kind of discrimination, Nitish walked out of the Janata Dal to form the Samta Party along with George Fernandes. Lalu once entangled in the fodder scam decided to break away from the erstwhile Janata Dal & formed his own local outfit called RJD (Rashtriya Janta Dal). Nitish was routed by Lalu when he tried to fight the election in 1995. Towards the end of 1990’s he gravitated towards a coalition with BJP. His Samta Party later merged with another old Janta Dal alumni Shard Yadav’s outfit to become his current party Janta Dal - United [ JD (U) ]. He got elected as MP & was inducted in the Vajpayee cabinet first as minister of agriculture & later as railways & surface transport minister. In 2000 when Bihar voted again, NDA was still unable to break Lalu’s stranglehold on Bihar. Finally in late 2005 (during a 2nd election within space of 6 months as 1st one in 2005 ended in hung house) the BJP & JD(U) were victorious at last, ending the 15 year reign of RJD rule in Bihar. Nitish had promised to end the so called “jungle raj” under Lalu which had led to rampant lawlessness & corruption especially by the RJD party rank & file. This was best epitomized by Lalu Prasad Yadav himself who was embroiled in the fodder scam. During this time there was also was politicization of all fields by Yadavs which led to corruption where a few enriched at the expense of the remaining causing Bihar’s stagnation under the Lalu regime. Elections in India are always a complex math in alliances. Unlike Lalu who nurtured his famous Muslim – Yadav combination, Nitish’s Kurmi base is very small (~6% of Bihar’s population). For political survival he knew he had to expand his base while breaking Lalu’s to have any success. Koeri’s (another small caste left behind in the Yadav years) were a natural ally. He also reached out to various Extremely Backward Class Mahadalit castes. The Pasmanda caste of Muslims in Bihar are overwhelmingly the descendants of middle and lower caste Hindus who had converted to Islam in different phases of history. However, most of the benefits when Lalu was in power were gotten by the upper caste Muslims. (Yes even Muslims have caste hierarchy which I didn’t know earlier as one usually associates castes with Hindus). Ali Anwar established the Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (PMM) to fight for the rights of these Pasmanda Muslims. Sensing an opportunity to further chip away at Lalu’s alliance Nitish wooed them over to his fold & rewarded Ali Anwar by nominating him to the Rajya Sabha in 2006.
Nitish worked hard to overcome this gross neglect of Bihar under the previous regime & provided a good account of his governance. His good work led the NDA government [BJP + JD(U)] to win ~80% of seats during the next election in 2010. Later that year when BJP hosted its national executive meeting in Patna, Modi announced a 5 crore donation (also with an advertisement in newspapers) to Bihar to help with flood relief. Stung by this so called promotion by Modi, a fuming Nitish cancelled his dinner invite for the senior BJP leadership in protest. In June 2013 he walks out of the NDA alliance as BJP was soon going to announce Modi as its PM candidate for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2014. Nitish on the record mentioned about the fear among minorities pertaining to Modi as the reason for ending his long relationship with the BJP. But many suspect that the real reason was that he had his eye on a higher prize: Prime Minister of India. He knew that Congress wouldn’t return to power & that NDA which had been underperforming in previous 2 elections would continue to do so which would lead to a hung parliament. In that case he could emerge as the “compromise PM” candidate with support from a group of like-minded regional parties with support from either of the big national parties. Modi however swept the 2014 election & dashed his faint hopes of becoming PM. Facing an assertive BJP in 2015 he simply made mends with Lalu’s RJD in 2015 & established the so called Mahagathbandhan along with Congress to remain in power. Lalu was eager to get back in action after 10 years in the political wilderness. All the years of constantly bashing Lalu for Bihar’s misfortune were forgotten in an instant. In late 2015 Bihar bucked the trend of state after state going saffron with the Mahagathbandhan sweeping the hustings & Nitish again being elected as CM. Many then knew that despite the huge success of this alliance it would not last as Lalu & Nitish were as different as chalk & cheese. Even though RJD won more seats than JD (U) Lalu honored his commitment to Nitish to let him continue as CM. However Nitish was helpless to stop Lalu from installing his two sons (political novices) into the cabinet. They got plum ministries and the heir apparent to Lalu, Tejashwi Yadav was made Deputy CM. Nitish as CM was supposed to be the man in charge of running the government & controlling its future destiny. However over time Nitish grew vary of the interference from Lalu. Lalu once even mentioned about the need for his generation to retire & pass the buck to the next generation i.e. an euphemism for Nitish to make way for Lalu’s son Tejashwi (f.y.i. Nitish’s son by the way doesn’t take part in politics). He knew that sooner or later Lalu was going to come for his “pound of flesh” & force him to install his son as CM of Bihar. Gangster Mohammad Shahabuddin when released from prison undermined Nitish’s authority by openly saying that Nitish was a CM only because of "circumstances" & Lalu was his leader. In the meanwhile BJP with its machinations on ripping apart this alliance had Sushil Kumar Modi (who was Deputy CM to Nitish in their days together) dig up information on the Lalu family in Patna regarding shady real estate deals with proxy shell companies. Central investigating agencies in Delhi like CBI, ED, etc. probed dealings when Lalu was Railway minister during his tenure in UPA-I. All this was done to make life for Nitish unbearable in the Mahagathbandhan from which he had only a single recourse for his political survival – come back to BJP/NDA fold. Nitish asked the Yadav’s to explain the charges against them to preserve his government’s clean image. Lalu simply brushed them aside saying they are “farzi” (fraudulent) charges & this was done by Modi government to harass his family as part of political vendetta. Together with this to add to Lalu’s already expanding list of troubles the fodder scam case was reopened against Lalu. In a superb inside scoop by Marya Shakil from CNN-News 18, Nitish quietly reached out to an old friend Arun Jaitley (Finance Minister) to study provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2016. Going through it he realized that in the cases against the Yadavs it was checkmate.
Nitish who had carefully crafted his image on being an honest politician & efficient administrator was now seeing his image & credibility taking a hit from all sides due to his association with RJD. The proverbial “final straw that broke the camel’s back” came when Lalu & his aide Prem Gupta met few BJP leaders in secret in Delhi to get “help” regarding all these cases against the Yadav clan. It was alleged by government insiders in Delhi that Lalu even offered to pull down the Bihar government if need be to make sure that the cases are put away. By Indian standards where today’s enemy is tomorrow’s friend Lalu was never going to align with BJP after pulling down Nitish. He has consistently been one of most staunch anti BJP guy right from the day he got L.K. Advani arrested during Rath Yatra in Bihar in 1990 perpetually endearing him to the Muslims in Bihar. BJP had also nothing to gain by this by seen to be aligning with RJD. This back door secret meeting completely shocked Nitish who could feel that the end was near & privately he asked Tejashwi (Lalu’s son) for resignation. RJD on cue from Lalu went into bunker mentality circling the wagons around their first family. Now even Nitish’s own partymen implored to cut ties before they go down with the sinking ship. Nitish usually has good intuition on when to pull the trigger on something. He waited for the exact day that Lalu would be out of the picture in Patna before pulling the plug on this alliance. On July 26th Lalu had to travel to court to Ranchi in neighboring Jharkhand for hearing in his corruption case which was to be held in the morning the next day. Lalu even cancelled his flight when Nitish resigned & instead decided to travel by road to stay longer in Patna. He however couldn’t just cancel his trip as otherwise he would be in contempt of court. Eventually late at night he had to go no matter how severe the crisis unfolding in Patna was. Things were moving at rapid pace in Patna where Nitish resigned, got congratulatory tweet from PM in an hour & got BJP support with matter of few hours. They jointly went to the Raj Bhavan at night went to stake claim to form new government barely hours after the fall of the previous one. Lalu being on the road could not effectively direct his RJD party men over the phone like he could otherwise in person on the ground in Patna. He asked Tejashwi to go to Raj Bhavan late at night to stake claim to form the next government as the single largest party in the assembly but the game by then was well & truly up. This led to angry accusations from both Lalu that Nitish had back stabbed him & this quick patch up with BJP was a “fixed” game. But some of the blame lies with Lalu himself. This isn’t the first case in Indian politics & it certainly won’t be the last one in Indian politics where “putramoh” blinded a father to the happenings around him. Everyone who followed politics closely including yours truly could notice that Nitish even though he walked away from BJP, in past couple of years did drop the subtlest of hints from time to time about possibly joining hands with them in future (support for demonetization, Ram Nath Kovind as presidential candidate, etc.). I always had a lively discussion with my sources/BJP supporters (who had inside knowledge in BJP) as to when was Nitish coming back to NDA fold. These regular dropping of hints by Nitish were to keep Lalu in check from subverting his authority by implicitly threatening to walk away from alliance at any time if he felt that his power was eroding. Many have said that the whole Tejashwi episode was simply an excuse for Nitish to take the “moral high ground” to walk away. Lalu if he saw through this ruse could have simply asked his son to resign & easily installed one of cronies in his place. This would take away any pretense that Nitish might have to break the alliance. Also one must remember the fact that the ministry had two of Lalu’s sons. If one did resign on moral grounds, Lalu did have another son who would still be in cabinet & so would still be able to wield power in cabinet by proxy. But Lalu was too strongly bonded by family loyalty & sacrificed his party’s future probably at expense of his family (another recurring theme in Indian politics). Part of the blame also should lie at the feet of the Congress party. Rahul Gandhi claimed after the breakup that he knew that Nitish would walk away 3 months before it actually happened. This so called declaration only makes it look worse that as the 3rd party in the alliance despite knowing the possible outcome way in advance could not play a more aggressive part as a mediator in the Lalu-Nitish dispute. Nitish even visited Rahul to impress upon Lalu to move Tejashwi aside but nothing came of that meeting.
Nitish has been probably called everything under the sun for his latest flip flop: opportunist, naked pragmatist, traitor, turncoat, amoral, backstabber, etc. I would much prefer the moniker survivalist. Remember Nitish for all his prowess as a highly regarded CM (by all sides alike) & one who has been running one of India’s largest states is not political heavyweight who could win mandates by himself. He has always required an alliance partner to come to power. As I explained earlier he doesn’t have a huge natural social/caste base which can project him to power automatically. That’s why over his political career he has run the whole gamut of political spectrum as allies: from far left with CPI(ML) in 1995 to far right with BJP. Nitish rightly mentioned some time ago both privately & publicly that to oppose Modi the opposition has to come up with a coherent strategy & plan. The current plan of opposition to have sporadic outbursts is not working. Simply opposing Modi for whatever steps he takes is not a strategy that is resonating with the electorate, something learned by Arvind Kejriwal the hard way over the past couple of years. His aim post 2015 was that opposition unites which can then challenge Modi in 2019 for which he said that Congress has to lead the charge as it was single largest opposition party. Rahul the reluctant leader has not yet been aggressive in setting the tone for the united opposition to counter Modi with a clear strategy. Nor was he going to consider declaring someone like Nitish who had the image & gravitas for being a credible alternative to Modi in 2019 as the leader of the opposition parties. So with the opposition being scattered, clues less & rudderless he saw the BJP juggernaut winning election after election including UP. He knew that the opposition was in no position to challenge BJP’s hegemony any time soon & decided it to jump back to the BJP/NDA fold. Nitish might have once called for Sangh Mukth Bharat but read the tea leaves correctly that aligning with BJP was politically expedient right now as the more likely Mukth Bharat in near future could be “Opposition Mukth Bharat”. He put his national ambitions in the cold freezer for now & decided to instead focus on continuing his rule in Bihar. If BJP somehow stumbles in 2019 which looks highly unlikely as of today he can always pitch himself as the “compromise PM” candidate who would be acceptable to both BJP & other regional parties. Secondly another major factor in Nitish’s decision is caste. The RJD (Yadavs) & JD(U) (Mahaldalits & Non Yadav OBC’s alliance was always an awkward to begin with. Yadav’s (now once back in power) being the more dominant caste had cases of extortion, land grabbing, harassment, corruption, etc. many of which were against Mahadalits & other OBC’s. This as I mentioned earlier was one of the reasons for Nitish to break away in 1994. This manifested during the 2015 where the RJD won more seats due to the solid support for the alliance from Yadavs/Muslims but some of Nitish’s base were turned off with the alliance with Yadavs/RJD. The longer Nitish stayed in the alliance his support base which already was small to begin with would further erode. Modi’s demonetization which was very popular with the extremely poor was further shrinking his small support base among the poorest of the poor. This could easily lead to RJD becoming the more dominant in the next election in 2020. With JD(U) playing second fiddle to RJD, Lalu was likely to install his son as CM leading to possible irrelevance for Nitish. To counter this Nitish simply reverted to the older alliance with BJP/upper castes which formed a better chemistry than the uneasy alliance with Yadavs which was good arithmetic on paper but not good chemistry. His OBC/Mahadalit voter base will now come back but he is at risk of losing the Pasmanda Muslim vote (that I mentioned earlier) due to association with right wing BJP. Ali Anwar has already expressed displeasure at this alliance with BJP as has his fellow party man Sharad Yadav. If indeed there are defections this will weaken Nitish greatly compared to 2010. Nitish might have saved his skin by his “Ghar Wapasi” to the NDA fold but with the BJP being in a much dominant position now they can dictate terms to him.
I couldn’t just end the blog on just Bihar & had to write about the political events in my home state of Gujarat over the past one month.
Pyrrhic Victory
DEFINITION: A victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way, though the heavy toll negates a true sense of achievement or profit.Rajya Sabha elections are usually so called “done deals” where the result is usually known to most in advance. These are the boring exercises in Indian democracy. There is very little suspense as to the outcome as the voters are the MLA’s themselves (vs the electorate in Lok Sabha/Vidhan Sabha elections) who follow their own party whip on whom to vote for. Never before I my life had I seen the level of drama that was seen on August 8th over the 3rd Rajya Sabha seat in Gujarat. Rajya Sabha seats mostly get proportionally allocated in accordance with party’s strength in local Assembly. Since BJP controlled 119 seats & Congress 57 seats BJP was in line for 2 seats & Congress the one remaining seat. BJP nominated Amit Shah & Smriti Irani for the 2 seats while Congress nominated Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel. Rather than conceding the 3rd seat to Congress BJP’s master strategist Amit Shah went to work. Shankersinh Vaghela the ex-BJP leader who was with Congress for past 19 years on not getting declared as CM candidate for upcoming assembly elections rebelled & had 6 of his supporter MLA’s resign, thus bringing down the Congress’s effective strength to 51. He then had his relative file nomination for the Rajya Sabha seat as an independent that would get support from the remaining Congress rebels & outside support from BJP. Reports then started coming in of more possible defections from Congress to BJP. Congress wary of further defections then moved the remaining 44 loyal Congress legislators to Karnataka to avoid them being poached by BJP ahead of the vote. There were allegations from Congress about money & muscle power(the usual staples of horse trading in Indian politics) being deployed to engineer more cross voting from Congress MLA’s. Many wondered why the BJP & Amit Shah would expend so much energy & political capital for this solitary Rajya Sabha seat for which the odds were not stacked in their favor to begin with. The reasons are manifold as I will explain below.
1) Amit Shah has openly said many times that they were in the business of contesting & trying to win every single election be it national election or a low level nagarpalika election. Many a times in the past Rajya Sabha seats were simply a walkover for a distinguished leader of opposition as a courtesy. Now under Amit Shah no such courtesy is to be granted & BJP was going to follow a policy of “give up no quarter” to the opposition.
2) Despite majority in Lok Sabha , NDA doesn’t have majority in the Rajya Sabha which makes it hard to pass any important legislation. Even with Nitish’s JD (U) votes, BJP is still not close to majority & from time to time requires third parties like AIADMK, Biju Janta Dal & others to pass legislation. Hence to control Rajya Sabha winning every single seat matters a lot.
3) Ahmed Patel being a close confidante of Sonia Gandhi was supposed to have been a behind the scenes manager during the 10 years of UPA government. Amit Shah believes that Ahmed Patel was pulling the strings when he was booked in the police encounter cases & subsequently sent out of exile from Gujarat. Working to defeat Patel was to not only embarrass Sonia Gandhi & Congress party but also as political vendetta for all the legal hassles faced by Amit Shah.
On election night 43 of the 44 Cong MLA’s voted for Patel needing him to secure one more vote. There was suspense in the last few days leading upto the election as to how 3 of the other party MLA’s: 2 NCP (Sharad Pawar’s party) & JD(U) MLA’s would vote. The story on how the party instructions on whom to vote for kept constantly changing as there were internal power struggles between various factions of NCP & JD(U). In the end it is believed that one of the 3 casted the decisive vote that helped Patel sail through by the slimmest of margins. Cong initially unsure of the result hence complained to Election Commission about 2 of their rebel MLA’s showing their votes to BJP thus trying to get them disqualified. In the evening there were multiple Congress & BJP delegations reaching EC office to explain their stand & as to why these rebel MLA's should or shouldn't be disqualified. It was even jokingly mentioned that one point in evening that half of Modi’s cabinet was in the Election Commission’s office. Finally late at night the 2 Cong MLA’s votes were disqualified & Ahmed Patel declared the victor. In the end the 2 disqualified votes wouldn’t have changed the outcome but due to all sorts of claims by various MLA’s on all sides on how they allegedly voted or cross voted it wasn’t clear till EC declared that Patel had indeed won by the skin of his teeth. Cong did rightly celebrate a rare victory against the BJP after a long time but the euphoria from this victory is expected to be short lived due to the upcoming assembly elections by end of year. Ahmed Patel urged the party to rally to win the assembly elections but that comment sounds hollow due to current position of Gujarat Congress. Last time Congress won an election by itself in Gujarat was 32 years ago (1985) & last time it was in power in an alliance was 19 years ago (1998). Such a long time on the sidelines would have decimated any other political party. However due to the bipolar nature of politics in Gujarat means that they have simply survived by default. Most people would be shocked to know that in spite of their regular failings in recent elections they still get a little less than 40% of the overall vote. The huge 10% difference in their vote share vs BJP in a bipolar contest explains why BJP manages to capture approximately 2/3 of all assembly seats. They did have success in the panchayat elections in 2015 but that was due to the Patidar anger against BJP. One would think that this time around with a host of factors such as anti-incumbency for almost 20 years, absence of popular administrator like Modi from local scene & with the Patidar (Hardik Patel), Thakor (Alpesh Thakor) & Dalit (Jignesh Mevani) movements, Congress would be able to close the vote share gap & give BJP a serious run for its money. However Congress is riddled with massive factionalism to take any possible advantage of BJP’s weaknesses. Congress in Gujarat is a mix of erstwhile Congressmen, ex Janta Dal members & also ex BJP members like Shankersinh Vaghela. The multiple power centers do no good to the party at a time when Congress requires a strong campaigner who could resonate with the masses on why they should chose them over the BJP. Many lower Congressmen have privately groused that for the past few elections Shankersinh Vaghela, Shaktisinh Gohil, Bharathsinh Solanki & Arjun Modvadia play a round robin game among themselves. After leading Congress to a defeat one resigns & hands over the baton the next who then passes 3rd one & so on & so forth just among the four of them. This time around Shankersinh Vaghela tried to get the Congress high command to get the party to announce himself as the party’s CM candidate. Vaghela reportedly even had support of a majority of MLA’s in this regard. Vaghela an ex – BJP man knew the tactics of BJP & was a street fighter who could possibly give the BJP a tough fight this time around. But Vaghela believes that party high command especially Ahmed Patel was not in favor of declaring him as their CM candidate. Maybe it was his past RSS background or due to the pressure from other factions in the party. Vaghela like Nitish dropped enough hints about his displeasure in this regard. Congress party insiders convinced Patel that there was less than half a dozen MLA’s siding with him & if he left it wouldn’t be an issue. Realizing that he was getting nowhere with his demands Vaghela hit back at Ahmed Patel & the Congress party. Vaghela who himself is no stranger to defections broke the BJP in Gujarat in 1995 to form his own party to capture CM’s chair along with Cong help. Life came full circle when with the mass defections & resignations he brought down the strength of Cong MLA’s in the assembly. Only belatedly did Congress realize how badly it had miscalculated the strength of Vaghela’s support inside the party. Congress did move 44 MLA’s to Karnataka to avoid having them poached by BJP. But doing so when the state was hit with the worst floods in a decade caused very bad optics where MLA’s were holed up in a five star resort when at the same time people in rain affected districts were struggling to deal with the aftermath of floods. In the end the rebels & BJP together did made Patel sweat it out for his seat till the end but even though they were unsuccessful in defeating him the damage was already done. Ahmed Patel in the fight of his life was able to outfox his bete noir Amit Shah but as one Cong insider said that this was “pyrrhic victory” as the 1 Rajya Sabha seat came at cost of 14 MLA’s. Not for the first time in the recent past when Congress could have put up a good fight in a state where it had some favorable winds blowing it’s way, it could well end with an “own goal” . This most likely cost the Congress its best chance in decades of finally wresting power back from the BJP in Gujarat.
