SP exits Bihar grouping; BJP stands to benefit
As expected, the anti-BJP alliance in Bihar is crumbling before it could even begin to start fighting the electoral battle. On Thursday, the Samajwadi Party became the second member of the coalition, after the Nationalist Congress Party, to walk out. That the party's leader, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, has been the leader of the alliance and was crucial in bringing together the arch rivals of Bihar — Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) and lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal — makes the situation particularly odd. It is unclear if the alliance will anoint a new chief, especially since coalition leaders are reportedly still persuading Mr Yadav to return to the fold, though it is unlikely that he will change his mind overnight. Officially, the Samajwadi Party’s decision to break away stems from its disappointment over the allotment of only five seats for the Bihar Assembly election. Senior leader Ram Gopal Yadav said that the seat sharing plan was drawn up without consulting the party's leadership and had left its cadre demoralised. The other theory that is doing the rounds is that Samajwadi Party came under pressure from the Bharatiya Janata Party, which supposedly used one of the oldest tricks in the Indian politician's handbook — threatening to unleash the Central Bureau of Investigation — to get its way. Political observers have also underlined that on August 30, the Samajwadi Party chief had skipped the coalition's key Swabhiman Rally (his brother, Mr Shivpal Yadav, was in attendance) which coincided with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's poll campaign in the State. Previously, towards the end of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, the Samajwadi Party had also broken ranks with the Opposition to criticise the Congress for its disruptive politics. Whether these were early signs of the Samajwadi Party diluting its anti-BJP stand is open to interpretation.
looking ahead, two questions emerge: First, how does the split affect the Samajwadi Party and second, how does it change the electoral arithmetic of the coalitionIJ In the first case, the answer is simple: The Samajwadi Party doesn't lose anything at all since its presence at the grassroots level in Bihar is next to nothing. During the 2010 Assembly poll, it put up candidates in 146 constituencies and not one managed to secure a victory. Together, all the Samajwadi Party candidates garnered less than one per cent of the votes. Even this time around, when the first round of seat-sharing was announced by the coalition, the party hadn't been allotted any. Of the five that were given later, two were taken out of the RJD's 100-seat kitty and three transferred from the NCP's discarded kitty. On the other side of the coin, the Samajwadi Party might in the long run be able to spin its withdrawal from the coalition as an anti-Congress display, and win some additional support in its home State of Uttar Pradesh, where it is on a strong footing, for the 2017 Assembly poll — although this is a best-case scenario, given its on-again-off-again relationship with Congress.
In the second case, the impact assessment for the coalition is more complicated. The Samajwadi Party's exit does not make much of a difference vote-wise but will hurt the coalition’s effort to present itself as a strong and united font rising to meet a common enemy. With the coalition exposed, yet again, for what it truly is — an opportunistic collection of has-been leaders fighting from a stale political platform — it is the BJP that stands to benefit.