Intro: “The most talked and fired probable alliance between Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav has been seen as a threat to the development of Bihar. This alliance may deviate State’s progress under the sheds of ego.
The victory chariot of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has shaken all the stalwarts in Bihar. During the general elections-2014, news reports had started indicating that Lalu Prasad Yadav has regained his lost ground and would emerge as the main challenger to the BJP. But it was all finished once the results were announced.
As far as the outcome of the elections is concerned, the fate of Nitish Kumar’s party was on expected lines, but the reports of Lalu’s making a comeback proved to be baseless. Like other states, the BJP continued its winning streak in Bihar as well. If on the one hand Lalu barely managed to get four Lok Sabha seats, on the other hand, Nitish Kumar got only two seats. Now the question arises as to what were the factors that led the two stalwarts in the State to bite the dust on their own land? The answer, generally, is 'Modi wave'. Apart from this, one has to take into account other local reasons that caused the complete rout of these two heavyweights of Bihar politics and that is there egoistic approach and caste based politics to gain votes.
For the past one year, it has been said and is an established fact that Nitish Kumar faced the brunt of breaking alliance with the BJP. But with the JD (U)-BJP split the upper caste voters deserted Nitish. Subsequently, after Lalu’s conviction and jail a big chunk of Muslim voters turn their back to Lalu. Nitish Kumar’s single point-agenda of Modi bashing caused the polarisation of votes in favour of BJP; and Janata Dal (United) payed dearly for this.
Now the most talked and fired probable alliance between Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav has been seen as a threat to the development of Bihar. This alliance may deviate State’s progress under the sheds of ego.
Most importantly, there are other local issues which have caused disenchantment among the people of Bihar against Nitish government. As long as the issue of development is concerned, there is no doubt that Nitish has carried out developmental works, but it has reached to a saturation point. Also, one of the major problems with the party is the absence of a strong organisation. Where, once the rate of economic growth of Bihar was above Gujarat that has declined due to this egoistic alliance.
Sushil Kumar Modi, former Deputy Chief Minister and senior BJP leader of Bihar has said that despite the victory of the JD (U) nominees in the Rajya Sabha elections former CM Nitish Kumar ended as a big loser.
“Former CM has lost even though he (his party) won the two Rajya Sabha seats. It marks the disintegration in his party. He applied all the possible means — saam, daam, dand, bhed — to break or wean away the BJP MLAs but failed. Nitish compromised with his policies, principles and consciences while joining hands with RJD chief Lalu Prasad. Lalu was still in the public memory as a synonym of the jungle raj,” he added.
On the other hand, all the predictions of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s making a comeback fell apart. Another major problem with Lalu Yadav is that he has not yet come out of the politics of 1990s. His arrogance, ego and over-confidence are his biggest enemies. During his election campaigns, the way he treated the senior officers tells volumes about his personality. Of course, the result of this election has given both Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar enough time to retrospect and formulate their future policies taking the aspiration of people into account.
-Monica Sangwan (With inputs from Sanjeev Kumar, Patna)
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