The Truth About Nitish Kumar And His Support In Bihar

THIS IS A COMMENT WRITTEN BY A FELLOW INDIAN BY THE NAME OF CHINMAY IN RESPONSE TO AN ARTICLE BY AAKAR PATEL IN FIRSTPOST. IT IS NOT WRITTEN BY US AND WE ARE POSTING IT WITHOUT CHINMAY'S PERMISSION. WE HOPE HE WOULD NOT OBJECT.

The fact of the matter is that any way you look at it Nitish Kumar has boxed himself into a corner. Actually most of the political analysts sitting in Delhi with virtually no clue of Bihar sub-altern politics sprout nonsense and give more weightage that what is his due.

Let me elucidate some basic facts here for such foolish political analysts.
The vote share of various parties in Bihar 2010 elections was

JDU-22.61%
BJP-16.46%
RJD-18.84%
LJP-6.75%
CONGRESS-8.38%

But there are some interesting points here.

1.BJP in Bihar contested only 102 out of the of the 243 seats at stake in Bihar due to alliance with Nitish Kumar whose party contested the rest of the seats. So this 16.46% vote share of BJP is heavily concentrated unlike that of Congress which contested all 243 seats but polled just 8.38% votes. So these are basically wasted votes and any party which allies with Congress is unlikely to benefit significantly from such an alliance.

2.The vote share of BJP throughout the 90's and last decade has been constant at 13-15% of total vote while Congress has virtually stagnated at 8-10%.Indeed there hasn't been an election in past 17 years where Congress polled close to 15% of total vote. This is the main reason why Lalu once exclaimed that leaving a seat in Bihar to congress means losing it. It is the only party in Bihar which has no core vote unlike BJP which is steadfastly supported by upper castes,kayasths and banias,RJD-Muslims and Yadavs, LJP, pasmanda Muslims and paswans,JDU-lower backward castes, kurmis and to some extent pasmanda muslims.

3.Upper castes are mainly concentrated in Kosi, Mithila and Magadh regions with thick concentration in the districts of Dharbhanga,Patna,Bhagalpur,Gaya,Aurangabad,Madhubani,Samastipur,Nalanda.An unusual feature of upper castes are they are highly dynamic and opportunistic and would not bat an eye lid on leaving their favored parties and sailing with any party if they sense it's close to gaining power. This has been the feature of upper castes in almost every state but Bihar has been sole exception to this as higher castes have largely struck with BJP even when it was in opposition for considerable period of time. This can be largely attributed to the fact that other parties in Bihar are largely non Upper caste in their orientation and core base.

4.Many analysts think that once Nitish and JDU get rid of BJP under Modi pretext just like BJD did in Orissa they would get the bulk of the upper caste vote and with his back ward class vote and Muslim vote he would be able to sweep elections. But the stead fast backing of upper castes to BJP demonstrated repeatedly in every tier of election from gram panchayat to Parliamentary polls makes such a possibility impossible.

5. Another interesting feature is that Muslim support for JDU is highly overrated. Actually contrary to public opinion Muslim vote in Bihar has not been voting overwhelmingly for Nitish as is being projected by Delhi media.
Consider these statistics

In seats with above 40% Muslim vote
JDU won just 1 out of the 5 seats it contested although it fielded Muslim candidates in all 5 seats. The vote share in these seats was JDU-32.3% while that of RJD-LJP was a close second at 27.3%.

In seats with 30-40% Muslim vote ( a total of 10 seats out of which JDU contested 4 seats it won just one seat) while BJP swept all the 6 seats it contested!
Actually it was the heavy OBC-Upper caste consolidation behind JDU-BJP which enabled their historic sweep and not any massive Muslim polarization behind Nitish.
Nitish Kumar knows all these statistics. He is not a fool to be carried away by media propaganda. After all he waited for 16 years to become Bihar CM and knows too well any break up with BJKP would only benefit Lalu-paswan brigade.
Hence he would mellow down and like a cat with its tail between its legs go along with BJP

I failed to mention one important aspect. Akar Patel says that BJP-JDU alliance did well in SC reserved seats.This is because Nitish succeeded in building up a mahadalit alliance of pasmandas, valmikis, pasis as an alternative to Paswan domination of LJP. Non paswan dalits at lower end of spectrum in Bihar resent how Paswans have cornered the reservation benefits particularly in eastern Bihar. This strategy clicked an results are there for all to see. The only way JDU can sweep Bihar without BJP is to have an alliance with both Congress and Paswan since only then he can fill the void of BJP departure(Congress-8.38%+LJP-6.75%=15.34% <=BJP-16.46%) But here is the main problem.The minute Nitish joins hands with Paswan he would lose the chunk of maha dalit vote so Paswan is certainly not an option. So what's the option for Nitish. Frankly there are none. He was able to swing the 2010 election becoz of complete upper caste-OBC consolidation with rich help from non paswan dalit castes and urban vote. Should he dump BJP he would be delivering Bihar on golden plate to Lalu.

The firstpost article can be read at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/why-nitish-kumar-is-unlikely-to-break-up-with-bjp-for-2014-673150.html