Bihar Election 2015: Occupation Vs Preoccupation
By MD Irfan
07 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org
Finally fifth and last phase of Bihar Assembly Election 2015 is over after more than a month long process. People got relief from noise of helicopters (udan khatola) and vehicles that were contributing smock and dust in the air. Now everywhere a discussion is going on.. who will form the government? TV channels showing exit polls. National, regional, state parties stood for 243 seats. Many new coalitions formed and broke, few parties introduced themselves for the first time.
This election was very different from other elections in many ways. After very long, it was celebrated like a festival in Bihar. One could see the intensity of this election among voters. In history, Bihar politics has always been fascinating. During electoral days it becomes highly politically charged society. Everyone discuss politics, one can define this in terms of ‘talking politics’.
In this election two alliances, NDA led by Narendra Modi and Grand Alliance led by Nitish and Laloo came face to face. In NDA, important coalition partners are BJP-LJP-RLSP and of course HAM and in Grand Alliance, partners are JD (U), RJD and Congress. In this particular election caste demography and coalition partners both were very important. In NDA, LJP led by Ram Vilas Paswan and HAM led by Jitanram Manjhi represent Mahadalits in Bihar which constitutes 16% of population, RLSP led by Upendra Kushwaha and Kushwaha constitutes 6% and BJP has strong base in business class, Baniya community and among youth and urban population. Now come to Grand Alliance, JD (U) led by Nitish Kumar comes from Kurmi that constitutes 4% of population and also has support of Koeris (8%), RJD led by Laloo Prasad who still has MY combination (Muslims – 16.9% & Yadavs – 14%) and the Congress doesn’t have any strong base in any particular community.
While election announced everyone was hoping this election would be different in a sense where issues and problems would take advantage upon caste and communities. Development would be major concern for all political parties. Price rise, opening of new avenues for employment, women safety, job security, basic necessity like roads, electricity, water, health and sanitation etc. would be discussed. But unfortunately it didn’t happen. Caste and communities sounded high. ‘Cow pe charcha’ was taller than development. ‘Abusive language’ took priority over day to day life’s problems. Political parties do not come with election manifestos and they don’t have clear cut agenda. Few party sells dream, few doesn’t think beyond caste and creed. Most of the speeches made by political leaders belong to any political parties tried to demoralise other political parties or political leaders, thrown personal comments.
Our political system gives permission to do this exercise in every five years. Political leaders are busy in collecting negative points of their opponents because in our democratic setup it works. But you cannot fool people every time because ‘yeh public sab janti hai’(people know everything). Who will win and who will loose...? 8th November will decide. But question arise, Is Bihar enough mature to elect a government that would be pro development, anti-communal, tolerant, pro poor, promoter of women safety and so on? Political parties were trying to consolidate votes accordingly their percentage. For this they did very good home work while forming alliances and if something left they did when distributing tickets. Many scholars claim, class politics replaced caste politics, I don’t buy this argument. Even all political parties knew this is going to happen on caste basis. Here, Nitish Kumar had something to say in terms of development which will definitely translate into seats.
While discussing current election with people I found some interesting reply I want to share with you. I met two persons at Ashok Rajpath, Patna, Mahesh babu and Mithlesh chacha, I asked them, Do you find this election different? They said yes it is different. I asked, How? They replied this is for the first time any PM visited many times for state election (pehli bar koi pradhan Mantri election me itna dafa aaya hai), they were not happy with that and continue with, pradhan mantri ka apna garima hota hai, sochna chahiye (PM as an office has respect, he should think about that), aur uspar bhi tool fajool bolta hai, gali galauj par utar aaya (and he says anything, using abusive words), laloo toh aise hi bolta hai lekin muhabara me bolta hai jisme badi badi baat keh deta hai lekin yeh toh direct bolta hai (laloo talks in same way but uses idioms in which he describes many thing but he says directly. In general PM’s many visit didn’t impact well. PM as an institution has big image among general public so they didn’t welcome this step. Somebody said he should take more interest in national politics but he and his whole team is involved in Bihar election. Shuruti was looking for auto at 7 pm at Gandhi Maidan, I asked her about women safety, she said well at 7 pm I am out means safe. She voted first time in Assembly Election and voted to Nitish because he gave her that much confidence.
People in general are happy with the work of Nitish Kumar. This is good news for any incumbent government which has this kind of response even after completing two terms. Very few people are unhappy with coalition with Laloo.
MD Irfan is a PhD scholar, Department of Political Science Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi