What Lalu Prasad had been saying during off-the-record sessions to journalists, he repeated in clear terms during the launch of his poll campaign at Terasia village in Raghopur on Sunday from where his younger son is contesting. He called it an "upper caste versus backward" fight and invoked Yaduvanshsis (Yadavs) as he had done in the 1995 assembly elections. For months now, Lalu has been weaving his poll theme around Mandalraj Part II line demanding the release of the caste census report even as his alliance partner Nitish Kumar was talking development and countering statistic with statistic to rebut PM Narendra Modi’s posers and figures. [related-post] Then came RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's statement on the need to review reservation last week. Lalu could not have asked for more: the RJD chief, who had been wavering between maintaining a balance between Nitish’s development and his pet theme of social justice - with the overt message of a social divide - has now come out in the open. After many years, he singled out Brahmins for attacking rituals. Mohan Bhagwat seems to have offered clarity to poll plank of the opposition. Nitish, who otherwise still talks development with his seven resolutions of development has followed Lalu telling voters about NDA's plans to "take away reservation". Politics is a strange game where there is no fixed model and anything that can ensure a win becomes the model. Social scientists and political experts have not tired of talking about Nitish stitching together a "coalition of social extremes (that) took Bihar politics away from caste to one of development". However, Bihar’s CM has been tempted to play up the social divide as a sub-text for development. For Lalu, caste is the main text and development an afterthought sub-text. The political discourse that began with development and an engaging and healthy debate on "my development versus your development" threatens to get bogged down in the quagmire of caste.
