PATNA: The Bochaha assembly bypoll result has sent a warning signal to BJP and endorsed the general perception that all is not well in the NDA in Bihar.
While the RJD has been playing its cards politically well since missing power by a whisker in the 2020 assembly election, the leaders of BJP and its ally JD(U) miss no opportunity to score points over each other, especially after the CM Nitish Kumar's party was reduced to number 3 numerically in the Lower House and now the saffron brigade has emerged the single largest party after inducting all the three VIP MLAs.
Though Nitish on Sunday dismissed the Bochaha result by saying "janata malik hai (voters are masters)", the internal tug of war between BJP and JD(U) is too obvious to be missed out.
In fact, many in JD(U) must be happy with the BJP's predicament.
"BJP lost because of its leaders targeting CM Nitish. Nitish is the leader of the NDA in Bihar. You want to keep Narendra Modi as the PM in 2024 but ask Muslims to go to Pakistan," JD(U) MLC Khalid Anwar told TOI on Sunday.
Even a video of a JD(U) supporter had gone viral during campaigning, when he asked the BJP candidate, Baby Kumari, why his party flag was missing and Nitish's face was not on her campaign posters.
Former BJP MLC Rajneesh Kumar openly blamed the internal bickerings in the NDA and lack of support from JD(U) for his defeat from the Begusarai local body seat in the council polls recently.
Sources also said the defeat of JD(U) candidate in Munger in the same council polls was more a result of a BJP leader's campaign against the NDA candidate as its happens to be the part of the Lok Sabha constituency of JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh, who had camped there for days together to ensure his victory.
The war of words between BJP state president Sanjay Jaiswal and JD(U) parliamentary board chairman Upendra Kushwaha and the former's statement that he was not sure whether Nitish would remain the NDA CM face in 2025 or not, sent confusing signals among the rank and file of the two parties, with former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi’s embarrassing statements on several issues adding fuel to the fire in the NDA camp.
Though more than two years are still left for the 2024 Lok Sabha election and three years in the state assembly polls, the NDA can't rely on PM Narendra Modi's 'charisma' all the time in the absence of his alternative at the national level, it's also a doubtful proposition that Nitish will like to be the CM face again in 2025, as he himself said in 2020 that it was his last election.
The BJP camp might be buoyant after its victory in assembly elections in 4 of the 5 states recently, but its government is losing the perception of delivering 'achhe din' in view of the skyrocketing petroleum and other commodity prices, which may punch its electoral base as its caste calculations are also going awry, political analysts feel.
The Bochaha election result has proved that a large number of Bhumihar and other upper caste voters owing allegiance to BJP and JD(U) till recently switched their loyalty to RJD.
An emerging Bhumihar leader and Rashtriya Jan Jan Party chief, Ashutosh Kumar, who was very active in Bochaha to garner his caste votes for RJD, justified such calculations.
He said while RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav extended his hands of friendship to the upper castes by accommodating a good number of candidates from this section in the recent legislative council elections from local body constituencies, the BJP has taken them, especially the Bhumihars, for granted.
"Where from came the RJD's over 82,000 votes, which was 8,000 more than the combined vote share of BJP and VIP (Vikassheel Insaan Party of Mukesh Sahani)? It's obviously from the upper caste (Bhumihars) because the BJP leaders considered us as its palanquin-bearers though we have been their flag bearers since the era of Kailashpati Mishra," he told a news channel after the bypoll result on Sunday.
