THE BATTLE FOR BIHAR BEGINS

NEW DELHI: It was a coincidence but a sign of the times when the first opposition leader that Delhi’s chief minister designate Arvind Kejriwal bumped into was Bihar’s Janata Dal(U) leader Nitish Kumar at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. One was going in to meet President Pranab Mukherjee after a resounding victory in the Delhi polls, the other was coming out with his legislators to prove that he had the majority to form the government in Bihar by replacing his own rebellious protege Jitan Ram Manjhi.

Both agreed to meet again with the camaraderie evident as the JD(U) had extended full support, for whatever it was worth, to Aam Aadmi party in Delhi.

The meeting was between two leaders who have more than any other, been under persistent and continuous attack from the Bharatiya Janata party. Kejriwal since he contested the last Assembly elections and followed up with the contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi; Nitish Kumar since he parted ways with the BJP in Bihar where both were in alliance on the issue of Narendra Modi. And the meeting was ironical as the dust is now settling over the Delhi elections, with Bihar emerging rapidly as the battlefield for the next electoral war.

The Janata Dal(U) decided to replace Chief Minister Manjhi over reports of poor governance and growing affiliation with the BJP in Bihar last year itself. Efforts to persuade him to step down failed and the legislature party finally responded recently by electing Nitish Kumar as its leader, and thereby paving the way for his takeover as the Chief Minister. This is the accepted prerogative of any legislature party, so long as the majority of MLA’s support a change, and the party of course has a convincing majority in the House. The JD(U) satisfied both counts.

Manjhi made his affiliations clear when he came rushing to Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After this the developments have been rapid with Nitish Kumar losing the first round and returning to Bihar by directly accusing OM Modi of “attempting to throttle democracy.”

Kumar and the JD(U) wanted an immediate majority test on the floor of the House to prevent horse trading and a vitiation of the environment. Kumar made the request to Bihar Governor K.N.Tripathi and came to Delhi with 128 legislators who accompanied him to Rashtrapati Bhawan to prove their majority before President Mukherjee. However matters were complicated almost immediately by a Bihar High Court stay on Nitish Kumar’s taking over as the Chief Minister followed almost immediately by Tripathi rejecting his request, and instead asking current chief minister Manjhi to prove his majority on the floor of the House on February 20. And not just this, the Governor has accepted Manjhi’s request to allow the voting to be held through either lobby division or a secret ballot.

This Nitish Kumar said was done only to “allow horse-trading of MLA’s” with the full use of money power according to sources. The Governor’s decision gives over a week for vested interests to break away legislators from the Janata Dal (U) to ensure that Manjhi gets the numbers necessary to form a government with the support of the BJP. Kumar said that currently Manjhi has the support of only 12 legislators, and has been directed by the BJP to get 35 MLAs to get the support of the 88 legislators with the BJP.

The week will be tough and fraught with tension as the first step in the game plan of the Janata Dal(U) is to replace the non-performing Manjhi with Nitish Kumar to recreate the magic of his first term in office. The JD(U) is in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal now, with the debacle in the Lok Sabha elections bringing the two parties to their senses. The Congress has not been included in the alliance although there are indications that in the Assembly elections later this year there could be a formal, or even a formal, grand alliance against the BJP in Bihar.

However, for the electoral game plan to be set in motion it is imperative for the JD(U) to have Nitish Kumar in the Chief Ministers chair. The focus will be on development, although sources in the party said that they expected the “dirty tricks department of the BJP to do all it can” to queer the pitch. The Janata Dal(U) has been moving from one crisis to another, more so as Manjhi is playing the Dalit card in Bihar where most of the scheduled castes moved to the BJP and Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha elections.

It is too early for the non-BJP parties to have made any assessment of the mood on the ground, and whether like Delhi where all seven Lok Sabha seats had gone to the BJP just nine months ago, the voters of Bihar have changed their mind. However, as the sources pointed out the swing in Delhi was due to the hard work of AAP over the past year, consistent and determined, whereas in Bihar the last year has been largely of chaos, confusion and non-governance.

However, the bugle has been sounded by all concerned parties and given the high stakes election in this state which has 54 parliamentary seats the decibels will only grow louder.

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Late on Wednesday night, Governor Tripathi rejected Mr Kumar's demand for a special sitting of the assembly for the trust vote, asking Mr Manjhi to seek confidence of the house on the first day of the Budget session. He has accepted Mr Manjhi's request that the vote be held through lobby division or a secret ballot.

"First a delay by the Governor in taking a decision and then giving Manjhi more time shows that it is being done according to a script written in Delhi and to give adequate time to execute the license for horse-trading," Mr Kumar alleged today, adding, "This has been decided at the highest level. It started after Manjhi met the Prime Minister."

Mr Manjhi has said he will not resign to facilitate Mr Kumar's takeover. He insists that he has the support to remain in the top post, but Nitish Kumar has alleged that only 12 of the JD(U)'s 111 MLAs support Mr Manjhi.

He alleged today that the BJP has told Mr Manjhi to lure away about 35 JD(U) legislators if he wants the support of its 88.

The BJP has sought to distance itself. Sources said the party assesses that if it is seen as meddling in the JD(U) crisis, it could give Nitish Kumar the upper hand in state elections due this year.

In its mega loss in the Delhi elections this week, a negative campaign against victors Aam Aadmi Party is being seen as one of the factors that went against the BJP.