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Assembly polls 2005 : Parties gear up for 2nd round

	February 14, 2005

Major political parties seeking to retain or regain power in Bihar and Jharkhand have redoubled their efforts to woo the voters prior to the second round of polling tomorrow, Feb. 15. The contest has become all the more intense after indications that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the ruling party in Bihar, has lost ground and especially its hold over the Muslim votebank. The party’s woes have increased after it was unable to work out an effective seat-sharing arrangement with the Congress, its long term ally in the state as well as at the Centre. Its prospects have further received a dent with Rambilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) making a determined bid to get a substantial share of the Muslim vote.

The RJD had been winning in the state on the basis of its stranglehold on the Muslim-Yadav votebank. The Muslim community, which remembered Lalu Prasad Yadav’s tough stand against BJP president Lal Krishan Advani’s Rath Yatra on the Ayodhya issue, had been voting enbloc for the party, enabling it to give a sound drubbing to its opponents even when the Lalu-Rabri rule did not bring any development to Bihar.

The exit polls conducted after the first phase of polling in Bihar as well as a survey carried out by Zee TV-C-Voter indicate that the RJD may lose about a third of the Muslim votes it had been getting during the last fifteen years. According to the survey, the RJD’s Muslim vote percentage in the second phase is likely to fall to 49 from 75 to 85 in the past elections. The Congress is expected to get 33 per cent of this crucial votebank with 7 per cent going to the Lok Janshakti Party. The survey indicates that wherever the upper caste is shifting to the Congress-Paswan combine, the Muslims are joining this shift. Their fear that if they did not vote for Lalu, the BJP would come to power is slowly fading as chances of the Congress-Paswan combine winning more seats are becoming brighter with each passing day.

In terms of seats, the RJD and the Left parties, which have an alliance are predicted to bag 31 of the 100 seats that are at stake in the second round of polling. The survey gives the Congress 21 seats, LJP 16, and the BJP-JDU alliance 32.

Taking all phases of the polling together, the survey predicts that the RJD-Left parties will get between 74 and 86 seats, while 42 to 55 seats will go the Congress. The BJP may get 69 to 81 seats while other parties and Independents may be victorious in 33 to 45 seats.

The survey says that Lalu Prasad Yadav and his RJD is facing a very tricky situation and the margins for their candidates are wafer-thin. In each phase, the RJD is losing 10 to 14 seats from its previous tally, and if the trend continues, the party could end up losing 35 to 40 seats compared to the last elections, making it very difficult for the RJD to retain power.

But in Jharkhand, the RJD is cutting into the Congress and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) alliance votes which will make it very difficult for the combine to get a majority. According to the survey, the RJD is likely to get at least 8 seats in the second round of the elections. The Congress-JMM alliance may get about 40 seats while the BJP and its allied parties could get 38. In this scenario, Lalu’s RJD could emerge as king-maker in the state.

With his back to the wall, Lalu Prasad Yadav is getting many Muslim leaders to issue fatwas (religious decrees) asking the Muslims to support the RJD in the Assembly elections. One of the prominent religious leaders to issue the fatwas, Khwaja Syed Moin Hussain Chisti Ajmer, appealed to Muslims to extend their support to the RJD. But these fatwas do not seem to have gone down well with all Muslim bodies. Most forthcoming against these is the All India Pasmanda Muslim Maahaz, that sought the Election Commission’s intervention terming it as communal.

This can trigger a polarisation, AJPMM chief Ali Anwar said. A section of the community feel that nothing is being done for Muslims except attempts to stir communal passions. This section cites riots in which the minority community was badly hit.



Congress sending mixed signals to Lalu

The Congress has dashed the RJD hopes of again leading any future coalition in Bihar with the statement that nobody can announce that he or she will be Chief Minister before the elections are over. The Congress spokesman in New Delhi said, “We have not taken any decision on who will lead the “secular” government. That can be decided only after the elections.” He did not stop there. ON the RJD’s `natural’ claim to lead the `secular’ government, he said : “We are very clear that the issue of leadership has to be decided after the elections. No one can claim in advance that he or she will lead it. There is a broad and secular alliance and the leadership will be elected in a democratic spirit.”

Incidentally, Lalu Yadav has been claiming that the election is to “renew” Rabri Devi’s lease over Patna. Reminded about this, the Congress spokesman said : “I have said what I have to say. I speak for the Congress. Nobody else.” The Congress spokesman also indicated that his party could throw its hat in the ring after the polls. The comment of the Congress spokesman is of great political significance for two reasons. One, this is the first time that the Congress has formally backed the need for a new leadership in Bihar. Second, it signals a rearrangement of equations within the UPA.

While making it clear that the Government leadership, both in Bihar and Jharkhand, will be decided after the elections, the Congress has made it clear that it will not ally with the Janata Dal United until it ends its links with the BJP. Party spokesperson Girija Vyas said the Congress will have nothing to do with any political outfit which had an alliance with the BJP. Her statement was intended to erase the impression created by her party colleague Abhishek Singhvi’s remarks a week earlier that the Congress was not averse to a power-sharing arrangement with the JDU. His remarks seemed to have been prompted by the exit poll projection of a deep dent in the RJD base because of the division in the Muslim vote. Asked about the chances of a tie up with the JDU, Singhvi had said that politics is all about possibilities.



Change in BJP’s strategy

In an change of strategy, the BJP and the Janata Dal United have now decided to intensify the attack on Rambilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party. In the first phase of polling, the NDA had deliberately eschewed a hardline approach while attacking the LJP for sheer tactical reasons. At the same time, it had launched harsh attacks on Lalu Prasad Yadav to keep the anti-RJD votes on its side. The perception of the BJP-JDU being less harsh towards the LJP was alienating a section of the forward caste votes which was the mainstay earlier of the NDA. A JDU leader admitted, “when two enemies fight, the benefactor is inevitably the third party. Naturally, we allowed the LJP and the RJD to have a free knocking at each other, although kept on mounting our attack on the RJD.” But the prospect that the LJP may as well play the role of “votekatua” (vote-splitter) for the NDA, has unnerved its leaders now.

In another change of focus, BJP president Advani announced for the first time last week that JDU leader Nitish Kumar will be the Chief Minister in the event of NDA coming to power in Bihar. “When the NDA was in a position to form the Government after the 2000 Assembly elections in Bihar, the leadership had been entrusted to Nitish Kumar. So this time too it is proper to leave the responsibility to him,” the former Deputy Prime Minister told reporters in Ranchi.

“Besides this, Nitish has also shown his capabilities as a Union Minister during the NDA regime,” he said.



Plethora of Chief Ministerial aspirants in Haryana

Chief Ministerial aspirants from the Congress have started making the rounds of the AICC headquarters in Delhi to shore up their chances. They include Birendra Singh, Bhupinder Singh Huda and the father-son duo of S.S. Surjewala and Randip Surjewala. The Haryana Congress is enmeshed in factionalism and there are at least six to seven contenders for the Chief Minister’s post. With exit polls pointing to a Congress victory and with about two weeks to go for the declaration of results, the battle between the Chief Ministerial aspirants is expected to intensify in the coming days. As of now, PCC chief and former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal enjoys a clear edge in the race for the top job as he is learnt to have garnered a major chunk of tickets for his supporters in the Assembly elections. On the other hand, he has many rivals in the party who want to edge him out.

Although, state leaders like Birendra Singh, Bhupender Singh Huda and Surjewala are not known to be on the best of terms with each other, they can call a temporary truce in order to keep out Bhajan Lal. In such a situation, Union Minister Selja could well emerge as a consensus candidate.

A candidate’s support base among the MLAs may be an important factor, but the final decision rests with Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Those pushing Selja’s candidature maintain that by putting a scheduled caste at the helm of affairs would not only help consolidate the Congress support base among the scheduled caste sections, but would also make it difficult for BSP chief Mayawati to make inroads in Haryana.