When Ticks Bag Exhausted, NDA Resorted to Power in Bihar

Bihar politics has travelled long distances since Independence and seen many ups and downs, some violent, some peaceful. But the fortunes of the poor saw only tinkering.

Class politics was on the ascendant in the state in the sixties and the seventies. Left and ultra left parties had created wide swathes of support across the state with revolutionary agenda. But over the years they shifted the reformist programmes of the bourgeoisie parties and slowly and gradually lost their ground to them. Now they are the pale of their former self.

The late Jayprakash Narayan led the Sampurna Kranti movement in the mid-seventies amid an unprecedented social and economic churning to replace the rusted regime. But the Ganga continued to flow without upheaval. Then came the Mandal and Kamal politics with social justice and cultural nationalism of Lalu Prasad Yadav and the BJP as planks. It saw a lot of violence. The social justice, as per Lalu, though did not bring in paradise for the poor but gave voice to them.

Thereafter came the alliance between the socialist and Hindutva politics.  Having brought sanity to the state after the lawlessness of the Lalu regime, the state travelled along the beaten path.  But the BJP got a foothold in the state. Welfarism with social justice and women empowerment as the focus continued.

Over the years, the alliance weaponised welfarism to win elections, and the last Assembly election saw this weapon being used in a new form. Instead of reaching the schemes to the beneficiaries in kind, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar transitioned it into cash payment in the hands of the poor, crystallising it as a quid pro quo between the voters and the incumbent party.  Nitish monetised the votes. Bereft of an agenda to counter the cash in hand programme, the opposition also went a spree promising cash payment jobs.

Money transfers under various schemes proved a game changer for the NDA, though it may interpret their victory as an approval of their welfare schemes. It blunted the anti-incumbency against the Nitish government. The government is least concerned that the Rs. 10,000 cash transfer will entail a Rs. 65,000 extra burden on the state exchequer. As these spendings are non-planned expenditures, it will not lead to addition to the state infrastructures.

Handing cash in the hands of the voters has become a winning trick for the political parties across the states. It also reflects failure of privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation that growth with jobs for the poor and middle classes. Instead, it benefited the wealthy. It created hundreds of billionaires and millionaires but created jobs much less than the demand. So, transferring cash to the poor became the only hope for the marginalised class. It changed the political trajectory of the country.

Shifting strategy of the NDA during the campaign showed that it was not sure of its repeat victory, and that too with such a big of seats with the opposition parties. It began with the off-repeated slogan of double engine government. But when it realised that the double engine was not chugging along smoothly, it abandoned this tagline and started harping on the days of the Lalu raj.

Though it came very late in the vote purchase market, it came on a massive scale. A voter told the First Draft that earlier individual candidates would distribute, they still do it, money madira to purchase, this role has been over by the incumbent party/alliance.

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar recently said in his election speech while campaigning for the local bodies election that “If you elect all the 18 candidates, I will give you what I have promised. But you cut down on something, even I will put a cut. You have vote in your hands, I have funds in my hands.’’

Similarly, Nitish Kumar would repeat in his every speech during the campaigning that Rs. 10, 000 that was transferred to Jeevika women would not be recovered by the government. Both statements made during the electioneering were bidding for votes to out-market the opposition parties from vote mandi.

The Mahagathbandhan alliance was so cocksure of its victory that their partners had started preparations for the government before the results. Their chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav had even fixed a date for oath taking ceremony. Their campaigns were in sixes and sevens, while the NDA led a coordinated propaganda.

Though Prashant Kishor’s party Jan Suraaj was decimated in the election, it definitely introduced a new narrative in Bihar politics. People took to it enthusiastically but they went for the NDA at the booths choosing the benefits visible before them over Prashant’s agenda for economic revival of the state.

The coming years may spawn new political equations in the state in case the NDA failed to implement the promises made to the voters.