Back Pre-poll coalition confusion in UPA
Rasheeda Bhagat
Things have been ironed out, for now. Leaders of the UPA (from left) Mr Lalu Prasad, Mr M. L. Fotedar and Mr Arjun Singh coming out after the meeting on seat-sharing in the forthcoming Assembly elections in Bihar and Jharkhand in New Delhi last Sunday. — Anu Pushkarna
First, the Lok Janshakti Party's Ram Vilas Paswan left the NDA when the BJP leadership refused to address his concerns on the communal carnage in Gujarat following the Godhra tragedy. At least a year before the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP top brass continued to ignore the DMK's displeasure at the State-level BJP leaders' cosying up to its arch-rival, the AIADMK. With the passing away of Murasoli Maran, in November 2003, the last link the party had with BJP's top echelons was gone. As the BJP leaders in Tamil Nadu continued to sing the praises of the AIADMK supremo, Ms Jayalalithaa, to the extreme discomfiture of the DMK chief, Dr M. Karunanidhi, the BJP's top-brass only nodded approvingly. Clearly, their hope was that Ms Jayalalithaa, who had staged a remarkable comeback in the 2001 Assembly elections, would deliver Tamil Nadu to the NDA. But Mr Karunanidhi walked out of the alliance with the MDMK and the PMK, and delivered 39 seats in Tamil Nadu to the Congress(I). The rest is history.
Is the Congress(I) doing the same with the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief, Mr Lalu Prasad, and to a lesser extent with the Left parties and Mr Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party? It has more than ruffled the Bihar strongman's feathers by tying up with Mr Shibu Soren's Jharkhand Mukti Morcha for the Jharkhand Assembly elections, the first after the State was carved out of Bihar.
The Congress(I) has driven a hard bargain, getting 33 of the 81 Assembly seats in the State. According to the initial understanding, the JMM will contest 35 seats, leaving a mere 13 for the RJD and the Left parties, something that left Mr Prasad seeing red. Describing the Congress as arrogant for arriving at this unilateral seat sharing accord, he let off steam for a while before softening his stance after a long meeting with the Congress leader, Mr Arjun Singh.
Mr Soren had a brief reply when asked to respond to Mr Prasad's trantrums: "If Laluji so desires, he can contest all the 81 seats." However, it is not Mr Soren but the Congress(I) that needs support and solidarity from the allies to keep the UPA government stable. Of the 14 Lok Sabha seats in the State, the alliance had bagged all but one in the April-May polls. Needless to say, Mr Soren hopes to become the next Chief Minister of Jharkhand if the alliance wins.
Another key ally in the UPA that is piqued at the Congress(I) striking a pact with the JMM is Mr Sharad Pawar, who reiterated the coalition mantra in unequivocal terms when he urged the Congress not to forget that of the 300 UPA members in the Lok Sabha (including the Left parties), the Congress(I) MPs were only 145.
Obviously still smarting from the Congress(I)'s bargaining power which ultimately denied the Maharashtra chief ministership to the NCP, the Maratha strongman came down on the Congress(I) and even threatened that if it continued to indulge in similar behaviour — like finalising an electoral pact with the JMM without taking its other allies into confidence — the NCP, the RJD and the Left parties may have no choice but to contest the Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana polls without the Congress(I).
But while it is Mr Pawar's turn to reprimand the Congress(I), Mr Prasad has softened his stand. After a two-hour meeting with Mr Arjun Singh, also attended by some Left leaders, Mr Prasad, who had earlier thundered that the Congress(I) could contest the Bihar elections on its own, described the Congress as a "trusted ally" and said it was the "duty of all alliance" partners to accommodate one another. "There is no question of complaints. We will contest jointly by sorting out differences," he said, adding his signature line: "We have to be united to defeat the communal forces."
Coming to Bihar's 243 constituencies and the BJP's last-ditch effort to remove Lalu Prasad's 15-year stranglehold on the State, the crucial factor will be how far the BJP and the JD(U) can present a joint front. Cracks have appeared in their relationship following Mr Pawar's open invitation to Mr Nitish Kumar to dump the BJP and trade the chief ministership of Bihar by striking an alliance with his party.
On the other side of the divide, it will be interesting to watch how many seats Mr Prasad will concede to the Congress and the Left parties.
On the factors that will govern this election, Dr Shaibal Gupta, Director of the Patna-based Asian Development Research Institute told Business Line that the RJD chief can no longer take for granted the Muslim vote in Bihar, which was 16.5 per cent according to the 2001 Census.
"Earlier, after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Congress was very unpopular with the Muslims, but now there has been a turnaround in the sentiment, with the Manmohan Singh Government at the Centre. Lalu knows that if the RJD and the Congress do not contest the elections together, there will be a major split in the Muslim vote and he can no longer count on the complete support of the Muslims."
He feels that at the moment some sort of brinkmanship is going on between the RJD and the Congress, "which clearly demonstrated in Jharkhand that it wanted to clip Lalu's wings. Of course, the real challenge for the Congress will be getting more seats from the RJD in Bihar."
More than "ideological issues", the alliance might hold on the basis of the power the RJD chief enjoys in the Union Cabinet. "But after what happened in Maharashtra, the Congress can be expected to drive a hard bargain. Any attempts by the RJD to short-change the Congress will be resisted tooth and nail; after Maharashtra, the Congress is bound to replicate its hard bargaining skills in Bihar as well. There has been a paradigm shift since the Lok Sabha polls. Then the Congress was not in power at the Centre, nor did it have any hope of returning to power. But now everything has changed, and it is in a much better position to bargain. Also, compared to Lalu, the Congress is a past-master at this game."
On the RJD-Congress alliance's prospects in the election, Dr Gupta says: "Theoretically they stand a very good chance. In 123 of the 243 seats, the Muslim-Yadav vote is 30 per cent and has traditionally gone to the RJD and its allies.
"But Lalu's main problem will be controlling the dissidents and rebels. The RJD has got applications from over 2,500 aspirants and, for the first time, this list includes the traditional elite or the upper classes, who have never been part of Lalu's support base."
He feels their seeking support from Lalu for an RJD ticket would have been considered "blasphemy five years ago. But after the Lok Sabha elections everything has changed. They realise that Lalu is now in the core power-centre, not only in Patna but in Delhi too, and they want to co-opt him, in order to get a share of that power."
But Mr Prasad's challenge lies in striking a balance between his traditional support base, the Muslim-Yadav group, and the "traditional elite". On all counts it promises to be, as always, an interesting battle in Bihar.
(Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)
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