IIPM makes business education truly global: Assembly Polls: NDA wins battle for Bihar

Rajan Prakash reports from Patna as the JD(U)-BJP coalition scores a landslide victory, the Congress cuts a sorry figure and the Lalu-Paswan duo is vanquished

Advocate Pramod Ranjan has mixed expressions on his face as

he watches the NDA's march towards a decisive victory in the Bihar polls on TV. Pramod hails from the Yadav clan and his two close relatives were
contesting elections from the Tirhut area on RJD-LJP tickets. Although they lost, Pramod does not look dejected. He says, “I am sorry for my relatives but I am also happy that ultimately the right person is going to form the government in the state.” After a pause he adds, “It's a myth that all Yadavs blindly support Lalu Prasad. It should be dispelled.” Perhaps thousands of other voters in Bihar would have similar sentiments.

Outside the state BJP office, two rickshaw pullers dash towards the TSI team. They want to know if Nitish would again become the chief minister. Finding the answer, they start walking towards the BJP office to see Nitish Kumar. The poor fellows are unaware that Nitish Kumar is from Janata Dal(U) and not from the BJP. But why are they so anxious about Nitish? “Sir, we are rickshaw pullers. The bad roads, till a few years ago, made it very difficult for us to pull the rickshaws. We had to toil like animals but now the road has been repaired and we are happy,” says a middle-aged Jeetan Pasi. The state Opposition refuses to accept good roads as a measure of development. But the same roads, which Nitish got repaired and built, have taken him straight to 1, Anne Road. By the same roads, Nitish has succeeded in denting the rock solid vote bank of Lalu Yadav. And the dent is so deep that neither Lalu nor Paswan can repair it, at least for the time being.

Deputy chief minister of Bihar Sushil Modi says, “We were expecting around 160 seats for the NDA. But the voters have surpassed all our expectations. There is a message here for all public representatives: If you take one step for public welfare, the public would come three steps ahead to embrace you.” Perhaps nobody could disagree with this statement. Not even Lalu's supporters.

Nitish Kumar has systematically dented the state Opposition's vote banks during the last five years and has widened his vote base. While Lalu had given a voice to the downtrodden, Nitish gave them government jobs and employment and won them over. Most backwards were given 20 per cent reservation. On one hand, the most backward among the Muslims were provided with the benefit of reservation. On the other, women were showered with perks by the Nitish Kumar government.
Women have got 50 per cent reservation in Panchayat. But it was the “cycle and dress” scheme that proved to be the icing on the cake. About one crore dresses and 27 lakh cycles have been distributed over the last five years. In every nook and corner of the state, one can find hordes of girls going to schools on bicycles. Five years ago, this was unimaginable in Bihar. The improvement in law and order situation has boosted the morale and confidence of the girls that translated into votes for Nitish.

“I always promise much less than what I can deliver,” says Nitish. The kidnappings, that had become an industry of sorts, have stopped. During the last five years, perhaps not even on one occasion Section 144 was imposed anywhere in the state.

Now, one can find doctors in government hospitals, though the present government has not appointed new doctors. Nitish has shown that wise management of resources can go a long way in overcoming hurdles. When conditions at the hospitals improved, doctors came back to work. There have been marked improvements in the field of education too. New school buildings came up and students were encouraged to carry on their studies.

In an interview given to TSI about a year ago, Nitish had said that his first priority was to encourage more and more children, especially girls, to join schools. He said that it could be done only when the atmosphere was conducive and proper infrastructure was in place.

During the Lalu-Rabri regime of 15 years, education infrastructure in the state had totally collapsed. Higher education institutes like colleges and universities had slipped into the throes of the mafia and musclemen. Degrees were cheaper and easier to find than candies. Now people with the same degrees have been appointed teachers and it gave the state Opposition a reason to criticise the government. But Nitish argues that Lalu has no moral right to criticise his government as it was the latter's regime that gave the state such “incompetent” graduates.

Nitish says that in 2005 he had got the mandate, but in 2010

he has got “overwhelming mandate”. The distance between the mandate and the overwhelming mandate has not been easy for him to cover. On one hand, his party MPs were nagging him. On the other, the upper caste voters turned against him on the issue of giving land to landless peasants. Consequently, the NDA faced big defeat during the Assembly bypolls in 2009. The defeat in bypolls gave Nitish a chance to review his strategy.

The upper castes' disillusionment with Nitish gave the Congress a chance to revive itself. The upper caste voters could not go with Lalu or Paswan. So, the only option they had was the Congress. In the beginning, the upper castes even warmed up to the Congress but soon Rahul Gandhi's experiments frightened them away. Besides, there was no popular face in Bihar Congress. To top that, the high command kept changing leaders in the state and coming up with new formulas. The voters realised that the Congress could not offer them an alternative of Lalu. Far from it, the old party was indirectly supporting Lalu.

Nitish kept telling the public that there was a tacit understanding between Lalu and the Congress. This aligned the upper castes in favour of the NDA. As a result, the Congress, that seemed in a good position at the beginning of the polls, has lost big time and managed to win only four seats. Rahul Gandhi's strategy of giving full credit of development in Bihar to the Centre did not help either. Congress's loss is BJP's gain. It contested 102 seats and won 91. It means 90 per cent success. In the last elections, the BJP had 55 seats. The upper castes simply had no other option. The BJP has also succeeded in shedding the image of JD(U)'s sidekick. This mandate for the BJP will have a far-reaching effects on the state's politics in the future.

Lalu and Paswan, who seldom looked beyond their families, have lost big time. The common people have rejected them. Presently, Lalu has another acid test before him in the form of the election of the leader of state Opposition. The results show that people's expectations have gone up. In the last term, Nitish worked for 15 hours a day. This time around, he may have to extend his working hours further to meet people's expectations.

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Labels: IIPM, Lalu-Prasad-Yadav, NDA, Nitish-Kumar, Ramvilas-Paswan