Tag: Bihar-polls

A Trailer to 2020 Bihar Polls, How Fight for Jharkhand is Already Drawing Battle Lines Within NDA.

Source – news18.com

Patna/Ranchi: All the allies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seem to have cocked a snook at it in Jharkhand before the crucial state assembly elections, as they are crossing the swords against each other leaving the electoral battle free for all and posing a doubt on its electoral prospects and return to power once again.

The NDA stands fractured in Jharkhand as the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) party, the only official ally of the BJP in the state, is singing a different tune, while the Janata Dal (United) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), which are allies of the BJP at the national level and Bihar, are fighting the ensuing polls independently.

Though the BJP and AJSU party have not officially parted ways, the two are locked in electoral battle in 27 out of 81 assembly seats in Jharkhand as both the allies have not achieved seat-sharing agreement despite several rounds of talks held at different levels. Both allies have been part of the NDA coalition governments in Jharkhand since it was carved out of Bihar in 2000.

The BJP has not fielded any candidate against AJSU chief Sudesh Mahato from Silli assembly seat. The AJSU has returned the favour by staying away from Jamshedpur East assembly seat, where Jharkhand chief minister Raghuvar Das is the BJP nominee.

In 2014 assembly polls, the AJSU had won eight seats including Silli, Lohardaga, Tamar, Ramgarh, Chandankiyari, Tundi, Barkagaon and Jugsalai. The BJP this time was not willing to cede more than 12 seats to the AJSU.

The JD(U) has chastened the BJP by throwing its weight behind former Jharkhand minister Saryu Rai in the Jamshedpur East assembly seat. Rai, a longtime BJP leader, is contesting as an independent candidate against chief minister Raghuvar Das.

When his name did not figure in the BJP list of candidates, he announced to contest against the Jharkhand chief minister as an independent candidate. Rai has attributed his denial of ticket to his friendship with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who had released his book in 2017.

The JD(U) has already announced withdrawal of party’s official candidate from Jamshedpur East seat, Sanjay Thakur, and Jamshedpur West seat, Sanjiv Acharya, from the fray. However, Bihar chief minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar has refused to campaign in favour of Saryu Rai.

Rai has been raising the issue of corruption in Jharkhand despite being part of the Raghuvar Das government. A senior politician from united Bihar including the present Jharkhand, Rai has been instrumental in exposing the fodder scam against the then Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad.

It is learnt that besides the JD(U), the AJSU has also extended tacit support to Rai while the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has pledged him support in the election.

The BJP and the JD(U) are bound to wage a political battle against each other in Jharkhand. The JD(U) has so far announced 25 candidates of the total 81 seats. Jharkhand JD(U) president Salkhan Murmu, who is contesting from Majhgaon (ST) seat, said that the party was looking forward to contesting as many seats as possible, depending on availability of winnable candidates.

It is a known stand of the JD(U) that it would have alliance with the BJP only at the national level and in Bihar, while in other states it would contest the elections all alone. The ostensible purpose behind such stand is to increase its vote share and thereby achieve the status of a national party.

The JD(U) has been contesting the Jharkhand assembly polls even before the state was carved out of Bihar in November 2000. In 1995 assembly polls, when Bihar and Jharkhand were united, its parent outfit — the erstwhile Samata Party — could not win any seat from the South Bihar region, which later became Jharkhand. In 2000 elections, it won five seats from this region.

The Samata Party later merged with the splinter group of the Janata Dal-led by Sharad Yadav to become JD(U). In the 2005 assembly polls in Jhakhand, the JD(U) had won six seats out of 18 seats it contested. The number came down to 2 in the 2009 assembly elections when the party contested 14 seats and to naught in the 2014 assembly polls when party contested 11 seats.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is trying to make a ‘considered’ foray into Jharkhand with a carefully laid game plan as the opposition parties, including the Congress and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), are in complete disarray.

Senior leaders believe that party’s alliance with the BJP in Jharkhand has caused substantial damage to it as its members largely felt hemmed in by big brother BJP. In the past, its tall leaders like Inder Singh Namdhari and Radha Krishna Kishore had quit as they could not find space in the state politics. Party’s past experiment with leaders like Lalchand Mahato and Jaleshwar Mahato has also not yielded the desired political gains.

The JD(U) has decided to increase its footprints in smaller states by increasing the number of MLAs and percentage of votes to attain the status of national party by 2020. It will also fight the elections in Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir. It is now recognised party in Bihar and Arunachal Pradesh.

LJP chief Chirag Paswan has also announced to contest 50 seats in the Jharkhand assembly elections. Though the LJP was keen on an alliance with the BJP in Jharkhand too, the saffron party was reluctant as its leaders believed that the LJP has not much to offer electorally in Jharkhand.

The conflict among the BJP, JD(U) and LJP in Jharkhand will certainly have its repercussions in the Bihar assembly elections due in 2020. The acrimony is bound to inflict bruises to the allies.

The Jharkhand elections will be held in five phases between November 30 and December 20 and the results will be declared on December 23.

JD(U) frets about BJP repeating Maharashtra drama after 2020 Bihar polls.

Source – theprint.in

Patna: The Janata Dal (United) is not warming up to its partner BJP’s alliance with Ajit Pawar in Maharashtra. Though Nitish Kumar’s party doesn’t have any stake in the western state, it is concerned about the post-poll scenario developing there because Bihar goes to the polls next year.

The JD(U), now the BJP’s biggest ally in Parliament, is concerned about the developments, spokesperson Pavan Varma told ThePrint. “Whether you see Ajit Pawar with the BJP or the Shiv Sena with the Congress, where is their ideology? Combinations are being made in Maharashtra in pursuit of power,” he said.

Varma said combinations which have been invited to form the government must prove their majority on the floor of the house as soon as possible, to “Prevent the unethical practice of horse trading”. He maintained that JD(U)-BJP alliance in Bihar is strong, but added that “it is confined to Bihar”.

JD(U)’s reaction stands in sharp contrast to the BJP’s other Bihar ally, the Lok Janshakti Party. Ram Vilas Paswan, the party founder and Union cabinet minister, was among the first to congratulate the swearing in of the BJP-Ajit Pawar government Saturday morning.

Echoes of 2005, eye on 2020

The developments in Maharashtra echo what happened in Bihar after the 2005 elections, which produced a hung assembly. The LJP was part of the Congress-led UPA at the time, and 15 of its MLAs “disappeared” and later surfaced in Jharkhand, in a bid to install an NDA government led by JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar. The move was torpedoed by then-governor Buta Singh, who recommended the dissolution of the newly-elected assembly on the grounds of “horse trading”.

BJP chief Amit Shah had announced that Nitish will be the leader of the NDA in the 2020 assembly polls, but after the Maharashtra developments, this has begun to look less assuring to the JD(U).

“Suppose the BJP gets more seats than JD(U) and, with the support of LJP, breaks away some RJD MLAs and stakes claim to form the government. This is the level the BJP is willing to go for power,” a senior JD(U) leader said on the condition of anonymity. “There is a clear possibility of the Maharashtra episode being repeated in Bihar.”

The seat-sharing formula between the BJP and its allies for the 2020 assembly polls is yet to be decided. But the BJP has made it clear that it expects Nitish Kumar to be generous and reciprocate its generosity from the 2019 Lok Sabha polls — the party dropped five sitting MPs to accommodate Nitish’s demand for an equal number of seats (17 each, with the LJP getting six).

There is talk of the BJP and the JD(U) contesting 100 to 110 seats each, leaving the rest to the LJP in the 243-member house.

The alleged BJP-RJD nexus

Bihar’s Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi made a statement comparing the Shiv Sena to the RJD, and calling it a party of goons. The RJD reacted by declaring that Modi faces an identity crisis and cannot make any statement without dragging in the RJD.

When RJD founder Lalu Prasad first came to power in 1990, it was with the support of the BJP. However, after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, the parties have been the two poles of “secular” and “communal” politics in the state. Their vote bank compulsions will not allow them to come together — the RJD has to protect its Muslim votes while the BJP wouldn’t want to antagonise its upper caste votes.

However, recently, there have been charges that Lalu’s son Tejashwi Yadav has been helping BJP indirectly by ruling out the possibility of the JD(U) and Nitish Kumar returning to the fold of the Mahagathbandhan. The perception, fuelled by former allies Jitan Ram Manjhi and Mukesh Sahani, is that Tejashwi is toeing the line due to the CBI and Enforcement Directorate cases against him and his family. This has weakened Nitish Kumar’s bargaining power against the BJP.

The senior JD(U) leader quoted above pointed out that though the BJP has been attacking the RJD over corruption since Lalu Prasad was convicted and jailed in the Rs 900 crore fodder scam, it pales in comparison to the magnitude of the scam allegedly committed by Ajit Pawar and other NCP leaders in Maharashtra.

“Corruption is not an issue which the BJP holds dear when it is after allies,” the leader said, stressing that Maharashtra episode has thrown the gates open to possibilities in Bihar.