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Patna,(BiharTimes): With two phases of elections over in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh reports suggest that Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar may not campaign any further.
Inter alia, poor response of the crowd for his election meetings and hopelessly bad voters’ turnout for the Janata Dal (United) candidates in the fray might be the reasons behind this decision. |
It needs to be recalled that the Janata Dal (United) workers of Bihar allegedly took a large number of people from here in the Bihar State Road Transport Corporation buses to attend the election rallies of Nitish in the bordering constituencies of UP.
If Nitish has no plan to address meetings in UP the alliance partner, the BJP, has decided to press into service his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi. The party has till now been avoiding him for political reasons, but now as a last resort his service is being sought. Interestingly, the deputy chief minister of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi, too has been campaigning in UP. He started off by addressing public meetings for the BJP in the very same constituencies for which Nitish sought vote a few days before for Janata Dal (United). This sort of detoxification by BJP leaders, including Sushil Modi, has upset many Janata Dal (United) leaders in Bihar.
Political observers are of the view that by going to poll in all the seats Nitish had already sought his pound of flesh in the NDA. It does not matter much whether he campaign any further or not.
However, there is no dearth of people who are linking the Janata Dal (United)’s decision to aggressively contest in UP with the BJP’s decision to bring Narendra Modi in for canvassing.
The BJP is neither interested in the Nitish Model or Narendra Modi Model. Had it been so the party would have made the Gujarat chief minister the star campaigner in the very beginning. But what is strange is that he was not even asked to campaign in Punjab and Uttarakhand where too the BJP is precariously placed.
The Janata Dal (United) is contesting because the Kurmi-dominated Apna Dal has become weak following the death of its leader Sonelal Patel. In the same way if the BJP has decided to bring in Narendra Modi it is simply because it wanted to adopt the hardline Hindutva approach as other cards have failed to yield any result. So caste and communal cards are brazenly on display in UP.
No doubt the BJP is fighting a losing battle in UP. But none of its leader want the party to be pushed to fourth place. Several factors, including the campaign by Nitish, have made this very much possible. Therefore, Narendra Modi’s support has been sought as a last minute attempt to salvage the position.
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