Four gains for the BJP from the Bihar coup

BJP will also gain from sharing ownership in several of the ongoing infrastructure projects.

Taking oath as Bihar Chief Minister for a record ninth time, the Janata Dal (United) president Nitish Kumar has served a delectable treat to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the Budget Session of Parliament, as well as the Lok Sabha elections. BJP has several gains to count while the Opposition has to fend off a fast growing mountain  of self-doubt in the next few weeks.

1 - Retaking Bihar Government

The mandate of the 2020 Assembly verdict was for the BJP-JD(U) pre-poll alliance. BJP had won 74 seats to emerge the second largest party in Bihar, just one less than the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)’s 75 assembly seats.
JD(U) had come a distant third winning just 43 seats. BJP endorsed Nitish Kumar for the chief ministerial post by arguing that he was the face of the pre-poll alliance.

When Nitish enacted a volte face in 2022 and joined hands with Opposition parties to oust BJP from power, the saffron outfit was forced to sit out of power. A large state had slipped out of its hands. Now with Nitish himself bringing BJP back into government, this helps the party build its poll campaign on the theme of the “double-engine” government, which has been a successful template for BJP across states in the recent Assembly elections.

BJP will also gain from sharing ownership in several of the ongoing infrastructure projects such as bridges on the river Ganga that complements the ‘double-engine government’ poll template.

2 - Blunting Opposition’s Social Justice Plank

The mainstay of opposition unity is seen to be the social justice poll plank. This idea was first mooted by the Congress ally DMK in a meeting of the opposition parties held early last year. This gave momentum within the Bihar Opposition camp to the rising demand for a caste-based census in the state.

Nitish and his ex-deputy Tejashwi Yadav had called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2021 to press for their demands for the caste census. The Bihar government later commissioned a caste survey to become the first state in the country to conduct and publish such an exercise. The outcome of the survey was released last year, which claimed that 63 percent of the people in Bihar are from the backward castes.

The Congress latched on to the outcome of the Bihar survey to lend its voice for a national caste census. Nitish being the architect of the caste census plank will take the credit for the survey from the NDA camp, leaving the Opposition on a weaker footing in raising this demand.

3 - Opposition Unity Now In Tatters   

BJP by weaning away JD(U) from the Opposition camp has sent out a strong message that the claim of unity among the political rivals is artificial. The messaging in elections is crucial and strategic. It is read by the people when they vote for their choices.

By and large, the verdict among political observers is that people now have a distaste for political instability at the Centre. BJP, by demonstrating that the Opposition camp is a disunited grouping of political parties, is asserting its argument that it alone can give a stable government at the Centre.

Further ammunition for BJP’s potshots at the INDIA bloc come from the discordant notes emanating from Congress seat adjustment discussions with the Trinamool Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party.

4 - Gaining Allies For BJP’s Mission 350

JD(U)’s from NDA was not an isolated incident of an ally leaving the ruling alliance at the Centre. NDA also lost the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab and the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. The BJP subsequently lost even AIADMK in Tamil Nadu.

The BJP crossed the 300 mark in the Lok Sabha with a strong NDA going to the polls with most of the allies putting up a strong performance too. BJP is now aiming at ‘Mission 350’. To give a semblance of seriousness to the ambitious target, BJP brought the JD(S) into the NDA fold in Karnataka. The re-entry of JD(U) further strengthens NDA ahead of the Lok Sabha poll.

The grapevine is that BJP is already in talks with the leadership of SAD in Punjab. The BJP may be looking for allies or engineering defection of senior Congress leaders in southern states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

Manish Anand is a senior Delhi-based journalist. Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.