After four rounds of polls for 27 seats out of the total 40 already over in Bihar, the only man who appears to be walking the talk is RJD chief lalu Prasad, who earlier had ruled over the State — by proxy and self — for 15 years with the sheer strength of his M-Y formula.
later, ‘M’ (Muslims) parted ways with ‘Y’ (Yadavs) and lalu Prasad was not only dethroned but confined only to four seats in 2009 general elections and 23 seats in 2010 Assembly elections. But when ‘M’ again has glued itself to ‘Y’, lalu has emerged as the man of the moment in 2014, but it’s all an advantage for him by default as the Muslims have only come back to him to stop NaMo at the Centre.
lalu must be thankful for the BJP’s ‘NaMo wave’ for his revival as the 17 per cent Muslims across the State have gone to lalu just to stall Narendra Modi’s march to New Delhi, otherwise their first choice in the State is still Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
While crisscrossing the State for poll coverage and interacting with the voters of minority community, The Pioneer found out that they (Muslims) liked Nitish, but this time they were voting as one force for the lalu-Congress alliance, who could stop Modi from coming to power at the Centre. The same feeling was seen reeling from Kishanganj to Gaya and Sasaram to Bhagalpur.
The RJD boss does not appeal to them yet they say “is baar mat nahi balki majboori hai”, and they go to vote for the man who had pocketed them electorally for 15 long years. “We do not have any option in this poll as either we have to vote for lalu or the Congress candidate. If we vote for Nitish, it will be of no use as he cannot do the required with his limited number at the Centre,” said Mohd Rezzak Khan at Bara Village in Gaya.
However, this ‘forced choice’ of Muslim voters became a formidable force when it allied with the invincible 14 per cent Yadav votes of lalu. Despite its best effort and mythological connections of Yaduvanshi from Dwarka, the BJP and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi could not make any dent in the Yadav votebank of lalu.
“When Muslims aligned with Yadavs, it becomes a fatal electoral combination for lalu’s rival parties and once again lalu is reaping the benefit of this bumper harvest in 2014,” said a senior journalist of the State.
The voters of minority-dominated constituencies of Seemanchal area admitted to The Pioneer that if there would have been any other prime ministerial candidate from the BJP, their vote would certainly have been divided between Nitish, Congress and lalu. “In that case, we would have voted either for the Congress or the JD(U) candidate or somewhere to lalu Prasad’s candidate … our vote would have been divided,” said Mansoor Ali of Thakurganj in Kishanganj constituency, where JD(U) candidate Akhtarul Iman had pulled himself out of the poll race to stop division of votes.
“What lalu has given to usIJ Nothing! except using as a votebank, but Nitish has given a lot to our community. Forget about anything else, at least we could live peacefully in his regime,” was the common refrain from the minority community across the State.
They also declared on frank note that in the coming State Assembly polls they would vote with equal force to Nitish and “not to lalu or any others”. “This time voting for him will be like wasting our votes,” said Mohd Illiyas Hussain of Chimni Bazaar village in Purnea.
In this way, the RJD boss seemingly has been able to make his revival magic just by default and that’s why he has been waiting for so long in Delhi to make an alliance with the Congress, observed a political pundit of the State. “One thing must be said that there is no one who has his feet firmly planted to the political grounds of Bihar like lalu,” he added further.
It appears that the fiercer the BJP gets along with its ‘NaMo wave’, the stronger and united the Muslims of the State would be to vote against him and the natural fallout would be more seats in lalu’s kitty. “It’s the ‘NaMo wave’ which has galvanised the Muslims to vote for those who could stall him and lalu, with his alliance with the Congress, is getting all the advantage,” believed many in the State.
Party sources said that the State unit of the BJP too has now realised that their over killing NaMo campaign has provided fertile space to the RJD supremo to grow with unbelievable number. "It's true but at this juncture we cannot do anything … we can change our strategy rather than to keep the morale high," said a State BJP leader. Modi, who addressed four meetings on Wednesday, is expected to visit Bihar many more times till May 10. Besides, party's 250 GPS raths too are moving around in remote areas of the State with NaMo speech.
The RJD boss must be thankful to Modi for providing him space to revive his political innings in Bihar. For those who had already written lalu's political obituary, now must be rethinking their words, as said by lalu himself at a public rally.
For now, lalu appears to be laughing all the way in Bihar, while proposing to send Narendra Modi to Pakistan.