Bihar: Tremors in the Yadav Empire

Getting the Railways Ministry may have brought a smile back to Laloo8217;s face, replacing the sulk it had settled into on being denied the...

Getting the Railways Ministry may have brought a smile back to Laloo8217;s face, replacing the sulk it had settled into on being denied the Home Ministry. But not all his worries have disappeared. 8216;8216;What weighs on his mind is the impending social realignment in Bihar that could threaten him in the assembly election due in February 2005,8217;8217; says an RJD minister.

With the upper castes and Muslims enthusiastic about a resurgent Congress, Laloo had sensed danger in advance8212;he smartly managed to preempt the Congress this time by arm-twisting it into accepting a four out of forty seat arrangement and then actively discouraging Sonia Gandhi from campaigning in Bihar. However, Laloo8217;s 14-year-old Yadav Empire will collapse the moment the 16 per cent Muslims get back to the Congress. The Muslims were with the Congress till the Bhagalpur riots of 1989. In the 1989 elections, the Muslim-OBC alliance of the then Janata Dal, which Laloo took over later, swept the polls. For those who noticed the anger on Laloo8217;s face after Sonia pulled out the surprise of renunciation, here is the explanation; as per the script Laloo had imagined, he would be the man Sonia would turn every time she needed endorsement. 8216;8216;I will be the queen maker,8217;8217; he had said. Laloo wanted Sonia to be in need of his periodic certificates of patriotism and citizenship, as she has been for the last five years. In return, he could keep the Congress in Bihar at his mercy, as it has been. All this turned into wishful thinking after Sonia8217;s masterstroke. Laloo is yet to reconcile with it.

8216;8216;Sonia8217;s moral hegemony has neutralised Laloo8217;s arithmetic electoral advantage. He is suddenly at a disadvantage,8217;8217; says Dr Saibal Gupta, of the Asian Development Research Institute ADRI, Patna. The upper caste and the Muslims who had deserted the Congress for the BJP and the JD-RJD respectively, are likely to go back to the Congress at an earliest opportunity. That would roll back the middle caste phenomenon that matured in the 1990s8212;Laloo wants to prolong that, at least until the next assembly elections are over. 8216;8216;Through these tantrums about portfolios, Laloo is in effect telling the Congress8212;8216;Rule India, but leave Bihar to me8217;,8217;8217; says Gupta.

Simultaneously, Laloo is preparing a second war plan ready by raising the issue of Bihar8217;s development. 8216;8216;The people of Bihar should feel that the dispensation at the Centre has changed. Bihar should be treated as a special category state,8217;8217; Laloo said. 8216;8216;His concern about Bihar8217;s backward status is the search for an alternative political plan for the next assembly elections,8217;8217; says a senior official in the Bihar government.

A large section of the Congress is now looking towards finding its own feet in Bihar. 8216;8216;We must fight the assembly elections alone. The alliance at the centre can continue as it does in West Bengal, Kerala and UP,8217;8217; says Chandan Kumar, National Secretary of the Youth Congress and a member of the advisory committee to the Congress president on youth affairs. If the Congress goes full throttle in its attempts to revive the party, in UP and Bihar, in that order possibly, it will force the former comrades in the JP movement and Janata Parivar to come together again in the Hindi heartland.

Laloo has already withdrawn all his anti-Mulayam rhetoric. 8216;8216;Mulayam is a BJP agent. He has no place in the secular government,8217;8217; Laloo had said while the elections were on. After the surprise results, he said. 8216;8216;I have no problems with Mulayam joining the government.8217;8217; When Laloo talked about 8216;8216;states ignored by the centre,8217;8217; he included UP and Orissa on Thursday, the latter ruled by Naveen Patnaik, also of the former Janata Parivar. Within Bihar, Laloo is said to be in constant touch with Kurmi leader Nitish Kumar, who had revolted against Laloo in 1997 and allied with the BJP. The middle caste Yadav-Kurmi-Koeri combination may be re-established, for both Laloo and Nitish to be in the reckoning if the Congress does what it appears to be doing. Kurmis and Koeris are five percent each of Bihar8217;s population, compared to 16 percent Muslims and 11 percent Yadavs.

Dalits, roughly 17 percent of the state8217;s population, will hold the key in any future formations. They are hardly comfortable with the middle caste parties. However, in the recent parliament elections, Laloo and Ram Vilas Paswan managed to successfully transfer votes to each other8217;s candidate. But Dalits are not a monolith8212;for instance, Paswans and Chamars can hardly be together. Paswans are politically organised under Ram Vilas Paswan8217;s LJP whereas most other castes are not. But the Congress is a likely choice again8212;the party8217;s Meira Kumar won the Dalit dominated Sasaram constituency with a whopping margin of nearly three lakh votes. If and when the Congress goes for the kill, wooing Dalits, will be crucial to resurrect its old social base of upper caste-Dalits-Muslims. That means, breaking away part of BJP and part of RJD.