Opinion NDA’s Nitish brand

Uttar Pradesh in the next assembly polls have dimmed. The Congress’s hopes for revival in north India rest on winning back its one-time core constituency of Muslims,Dalits and upper castes,its old grand social coalition,which had drifted away in different directions. This strategy had paid dividends in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls where the Congress emerged from nowhere to win more than twenty seats in Uttar Pradesh.

The Bihar result indicates that the Congress was unable to woo back the Muslim voter. And the JD(U) tie-up with the BJP did not in any way harm the former’s popularity with minorities. The BJP and JD(U) have,in fact,performed particularly well in constituencies with a larger than average share of Muslim voters. While it is true that the BJP sometimes wins such constituencies because of the consolidation of the Hindu vote,this does not seem to be the pattern in Bihar. For instance,the BJP’s Saba Zafar won comfortably from the Amour constituency which has a 75 per cent Muslim population.

Nitish’s trump card is that by pressing ahead with the development agenda in much neglected Bihar,his appeal transcends communal and caste divisions. Lalu Prasad’s hopes that the Allahabad judgment in the Ayodhya dispute would work in his favour were dashed. Rahul Gandhi’s complaint that Nitish could not call himself secular after supping with the BJP fell flat. In hindsight,Nitish’s public spat with the BJP making clear that Narendra Modi was unwelcome in his state seems to have reassured Muslim voters.

The 15-year-old JD(U)-BJP partnership proved ultimately to be mutually beneficial,though sceptics had dubbed it as an opportunistic alliance of opposites. Upper caste voters remained loyal to the NDA even if they were suspicious of Nitish’s focus on empowering the EBCs (extremely backward classes) and Mahadalits Nitish triumphed not just over traditional social divisions but also over vested political interests in his own party and the BJP,which felt sidelined since Nitish runs his government as a one-man show.

His phenomenal victory automatically makes Nitish a serious contender for the leadership of the NDA,which until now was assumed to be the prerogative of the BJP as the largest stakeholder. Nitish’s presence in the moth-eaten NDA certainly adds to its credibility and appeal. The BJP hopes the Bihar verdict will serve as a launching pad to reinvigorate the NDA. The NDA also benefits automatically from the decline of the Left,the usual rallying force for a third front. Three major NDA allies,Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP,Mamata Bannerjee’s Trinamool Congress and Naveen Patnaik’s BJD had quit the alliance complaining that the BJP’s negative image among minorities harmed their own political prospects. The NDA is handicapped in being perceived as a serious national alternative to the UPA because of its near absence in states like Tamil Nadu,Andhra,Orissa,West Bengal and Kerala.

There are indications that the BJP would like to focus on its record in governance rather than harp on ideology. By giving its CMs a free hand and emphasising the importance of performance,it has assembled an impressive rank of regional leaders. Nitish and Modi may be the most prominent names among the NDA group of chief ministers,but others like Raman Singh,Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Prem Kumar Dhumal are also making a mark in their respective states. (Of course,the NDA stable also has B.S. Yeddyurappa.)

In contrast,the Congress inherited from Indira Gandhi a deep suspicion of any regional satrap who has the strength to create a constituency of his or her own. Congress chief ministerial candidates can be uninspiring and selected not on the basis of their popular appeal but whether they will remain loyal to the party bosses in Delhi. Sheila Dikshit and the late Y.S.R. Reddy are exceptions to the norm who acquired stature after being nominated to the chief minister’s post.

The Bihar 2010 poll may well prove to be a trend setter of another sort. In future performance on the ground could count more with the voters than empty political pronouncements. Nitish after all is known as a man of few words.

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