Bihar 2020: Are voters again going to call BJP’s bluff?

Five years ago, in 2015 I visited Bihar for barely three days before I had to rush back following hospitalization of my wife for Dengue. I was reluctant to visit Bihar because like others I too believed BJP and Narendra Modi would sweep it. But the short trip was an eye-opener. Five years later in 2020, I wonder if Bihar will again call BJP’s bluff.

In 2015, on one of the three days I visited Kalyan Bigha to get a feel of chief minister Nitish Kumar’s native village. The second day I attended an election rally addressed by him and on the third day I flew back.

In the village, while the chief minister’s ancestral house stuck out like a sore thumb, dilapidated and decrepit, the village certainly was better off with not one but four well laid roads connecting it from all sides. There was a water tower, tubewells and other visible signs of Vikas. The PHC had an ambulance and medicines were in stock. The maternity ward had three expectant women and students and teachers were there in school though a student, when I started asking which subject he liked most, gave me a stricken look and said he had cramp in his stomach.

But what struck me was an indoor shooting range in the village. I was curious when told about it. There was nobody there but helpful villagers sent out messages and soon someone arrived with the keys. It was a neat indoor shooting range. And the cupboards had what looked like air rifles and pistols etc. They apologized for their inability to give a demonstration since the key to the cupboards with bullets was with the instructor and the coach, who was not available.

I am almost certain that the shooting club has shut down. Shooting is an expensive sport and it made little sense to promote the sport in a Bihar village. But that is how public money has for long been spent in Bihar and, I dare say, elsewhere.

For most political leaders, construction amounts to development and an opportunity to award contracts and make money for themselves or the party. Nitish Kumar had also spent a lot of money on construction. I was stuck by the imposing Buddha Park opposite the Patna Railway Station built where the Bankipore Jail once stood. It had cost several hundred Crore of Rupees, I was informed. A few hundred Crore had also been spent on a new museum in Patna and in building an International Convention Centre at Rajgir. Were they lopsided priorities or have they added to the pride of the people in Bihar, I sometimes wonder.

The question assumed a greater significance last week as I listened to an interview of journalist writer Pushyamitra. He has written recently a muchacclaimed book on Bihar published by Rajkamal Prakashan. Its title is ‘Rukta Pur’ or Ruktapur, an imaginary place. He explains that his book is about a place where everything seems to stop (in Hindi ‘Ruk’ is a command, a verb asking people to stop). He explained the development of Bihar by saying that if culverts, bridges and roads signified development, then Bihar had developed. But with just 2,800 doctors in government hospitals for a population of 13 Crore, the sanctioned posts being over 12,000, can one say the same thing?

He also said something equally significant. While the state suffers from floods every year or on alternate years, there is no provision for permanent shelters. Half a million people were displaced by floods this year too. But most of them camped on highways and roadsides, he said.

This, I remember, was a recurring issue. Way back in 1987 I had seen the displaced in their thousands marooned on embankments. They squatted in the open in the rain. Men and women defecated together after dusk. Women gave birth there and men lived with their cattle. I had also seen how difficult it was for them to get boats, drinking water, food and fodder. Thousands of Crores of Rupees would be spent every year on strengthening the embankments, hire contractors to dump sand bags, hire country boats and distribute tarpaulin sheets for shelter. But more permanent solutions were never found. Flood Relief had become a seasonal industry.

But it was not the state’s lack of development that stuck me in 2015. It was the utter contempt with which villagers spoke of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Poor villagers joked that they had never seen a Prime Minister addressing rallies in Block headquarters. They mocked at Amit Shah’s solemn warning that if the Grand Alliance won, firecrackers would mark celebrations in Pakistan. And this was the year after 2014.

There were other indications and encounters which made me feel that the NDA and the BJP were on a weak wicket. When I returned to Delhi, the first phase of polling was still a good 10 days away. But when the Outlook Editor-in-Chief Krishna Prasad asked me for my assessment, I recklessly said BJP would find it difficult to bag more than 70 seats in the 240-member Assembly. To my consternation he fished out his smart phone and asked me to say it on record.

I explained why I felt the NDA would not do well and why the Grand Alliance seemed to have an edge. But KP would not let me off the hook and insisted that I specify the number of seats the NDA would bag. Again, I hemmed and hawed but eventually blurted out that if my assessment was correct, NDA would not get more than 70 seats.

The podcast was put up on the website and drew some attention because the headline stated that NDA would not secure more than 70 seats. I could only sense the mirth rippling through the office. Colleagues were indulgent but clearly believed I did not know what I was talking. The conventional wisdom was that BJP would romp home. Solicitious colleagues advised me to stay at home on counting day.

The counting was on a Sunday and I was on my way to the barber around 10 am when I was intrigued to get a call saying it was all over. BJP had won. So early in the counting, I exclaimed but the caller insisted that TV channels had called the election. I hurried home and found that NDTV had mistakenly projected the lead in postal ballots to the entire election.

It was an inexplicable gaffe though conventional wisdom was that BJP would win big time. Narendra Modi was towering over others and Amit Shah was camping in Patna. Money was flowing like water and what chance did Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar have? But Nitish and Lalu Prasad had Prashant Kishor, the poll strategist who had helped the Modi campaign in 2014. And he did help the Grand Alliance use their resources well and made it more cost-effective. Bicycles and cycle rickshaws were put to use by the campaign, which made sense in the interior areas.

In 2020, Modi’s popularity is arguably lower and the economic distress a lot more. Instead of the double-engine growth that the PM is so fond of talking, at this point it is double anti-incumbency that should worry it more.

That things are not going quite to its plan is evident. Otherwise the Minister of State for Home would not say, so early in the campaign, that if RJD won, Kashmiri terrorists would flock to Bihar. Nor would BJP leader Bhupendra Yadav accuse the RJD of aligning with Left radicals.

One can expect dramatic developments, conspiracies busted, even violent disruptions followed by arrests—primarily designed to turn the tide. But at the moment, two weeks before the first phase of polling, Bihar seems to be in a mood to call BJP’s bluff.