In the run-up to its recently concluded meeting in Patna, the BJP's Bihar unit has made tall claims that it planned to fight the 2025 Assembly elections alone in the state. The party leaders said they would strengthen the party on 200 seats leaving the seats won by the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) aside. The Bihar Assembly has 243 seats and in the 2020 Assembly polls, the JD(U) could win only 43 seats.
Around 700 delegates, including BJP national chief J P Nadda and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, attended the BJP Bihar unit's meetings last week. In a dramatic twist, after the meeting concluded on July 31, BJP leaders said the party would fight the 2024 Lok Sabha and 2025 Assembly polls with alliance partners.
BJP national general secretary Arun Singh told the media, "There is no tug of war going on with the JD(U), and the BJP has always followed the coalition dharma. We will fight elections together, whether the 2024 (Lok Sabha) or 2025 (Assembly polls)."
Looking visibly angry, Lok Sabha MP and Union minister Giriraj Singh, who favours the BJP fighting Bihar Assembly elections alone, told the media, "All leaders talked well. We will not only fight the upcoming 2024 and 2025 elections but all future elections together." Other leaders, too, echoed a similar line. A section of the Bihar BJP has long demanded that the party should contest the Assembly polls alone. But another faction, considered soft on Nitish Kumar, argues that the party should fight elections in alliance with the JD(U).
Sushil Modi, BJP Rajya Sabha MP and former deputy chief minister, known to be close to Nitish Kumar, was not impressed with the joint meeting. So he refrained from tweeting anything about the party meeting, except for posting a photo on his Twitter account where he was present.
So what happened during the two-day meeting that had the BJP backtrack to say it would continue its alliance with the JD(U)? The JD(U) leaders' statements have some answers. On July 30, the first day of BJP's two days joint meeting, JD(U) national president Lalan Singh said, "Why only 200 seats, the BJP can prepare for all 243 seats. Every party has the right to strengthen its base, and they (BJP) are free to do so. We, too, have been preparing for 243 seats."
Before this, Bihar CM and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar remained absent from President Droupadi Murmu's oath-taking ceremony in New Delhi. Later it turned out that Nitish Kumar had tested positive for Covid-19 and was under treatment. But, his absence was interpreted as a message that Nitish Kumar was unhappy with his alliance partner BJP. There are various reasons for his displeasure with the BJP. Nitish Kumar is angry at how Assembly speaker and BJP leader Vijay Kumar Sinha conducts the Assembly proceedings. He is also upset with the Bihar BJP unit, whose leaders often target the CM. Discomfort has grown so much that BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan had to fly to Bihar to meet Nitish Kumar.
It is believed that the BJP's top leadership has conveyed to its state unit that the JD(U) is unhappy, which is why BJP leaders said they would fight future elections in Bihar with the JD(U). In the meeting, BJP leaders said they are targeting more seats in Bihar in the 2024 general elections, which the party knows is impossible without Nitish Kumar. The BJP is yet to become a strong force in Bihar to take on the JD(U) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) alone.
The BJP has played its Hindutva card several times in Bihar, but with indifferent results. In the 2015 Bihar assembly elections, BJP had fought alone and, despite a clean sweep in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, could win just 53 seats, coming third behind the RJD and JD(U) in the seat tally. On the social engineering front, it lacks a strong base in different decisive caste segments, especially the EBC (extremely backward castes) and SC (Scheduled Castes). So to target this segment, the BJP needs the JD(U). The BJP also lacks popular mass leaders who can match the popularity of RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.
As the BJP is targeting to increase its tally in the 2024 general elections, the JD(U) has become inevitable for the saffron party. So the BJP will not try to anger Nitish Kumar at all.
A BJP leader, who wished not to be named, said, "Local BJP leaders may target Nitish Kumar, but the central leadership believes that the JD(U) should be kept in the NDA. The reason is the BJP is still weak on multiple fronts. So severing ties with the JD(U) may turn out to be a blunder. We are not going to take that risk."
(Umesh Kumar Ray is a Patna-based independent journalist.)