12) BIG JOLT FOR BJP IN BIHAR ASSEMBLY POLLS
By B. Prasant, PV correspondent in India
India’s BJP-led “national democratic alliance” or NDA has been defeated in Bihar, and in a big way. This is the second time the so-called ‘Modi wave’ was wrecked on the rock of popular will, following the comprehensive defeat some months back in the Delhi state polls.
The chief contestants in the crucial Bihar assembly elections, held in six stages during October and November, were: the former Socialist group parties Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which combined and led a string of smaller secular parties; the BJP-led NDA; the Congress; a small bloc of Communist and left parties; and regional groupings.
The BJP, which dominates the NDA, organised its electoral battle around Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who found time between foreign junkets (he has been on close to thirty trips abroad in the past fifteen months or so), to unleash massively belligerent speeches at carefully-orchestrated ‘mass’ rallies.
Modi principally played the Hindu card, but little else is expected from a dyed-in-the-wool RSS organiser and leader. In his addresses, the Prime Minister attacked the secular forces as ‘pseudo entities,’ questioned the political veracity of the former Socialists, attacked the RJD and JD-U leaders for their ‘incompetence’ to rule a state as diverse as Bihar, promised the Biharis billions of rupees of ‘packages’ (without budgetary underpinning of course), and finally, repeatedly ad nauseum, that the rule of the jungle (a jangli raj) would follow an electoral sweep by the former Socialists.
Modi’s most infamous memorandum during the rallies was that should BJP lose the election in Bihar, patakas (firecrackers) would burst and lamps would be lit in celebration in Pakistan.
He never tired of consistent, arrogant attacks on secular politics, in the process condoning by default the constant uttering of the many RSS mass fronts, which in the run up to the Bihar elections called at various times for a ban on cow slaughter, attacks on select Muslims for their food habits, assaults against “low caste” Hindus, and finally calling upon those who would not support the idea of a Hindu state (Hindu rashtra) to go away bag and baggage to Pakistan.
The former Socialists, on the other hand, spoke about all round development, constantly emphasising sadak-bijli-paani-ghar (roads, electricity, water, and housing). They also pointed to the manner in which Biharis could come out of the deteriorating law-and-order situation with determined political will. The RD and JD-U underlined how minorities, dalits and mahadalits (low-caste and very low caste) not only remained secure in Bihar, but also had opportunities for development in the past 25-odd years. They never attacked Modi per se, which paid off in the face of the very personal attacks that the BJP supremo launched on the RJD and JD-U leadership.
Of the 243 Bihar Assembly seats, the JD-U, RJD alliance won 151, compared to 27 for the Congress, 58 for the NDA, and seven for left parties and independents.
Meanwhile, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led left and democratic front (LDF) scored an important success in elections recently held in the urban and rural bodies in Kerala, a state presently ruled by a Congress-led “United Democratic Front” (UDF) government.
The LDF was able to register wins in a large majority of the municipal bodies and in the three-tier Panchayats at the village, block, and district levels. This win is significant because the UDF exerts strong political domination Kerala. In the local polls, the BJP electioneered on both communal and caste lines, a new development.
Finally, the BJP has lost two Lok Sabha (parliament) byelections: the Ratlam-Jhabua seat in the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh state, and the Warangal seat in Telangana, where a regional party heads the state government. Losing a seat each in north and south India is a significant debacle. Both constituencies have sizeable tribal populations, and clearly the well-publicised hostile stance of the RSS against the lower castes had an impact on the poll outcome.
(The above article is from the December 1-31, 2015, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)