Patna: Pre-election muscle-flexing has begun in Bihar with the Janata Dal United and the BJP eyeball to eyeball on who will play "big brother" in 2019.
The public spat was triggered off by JDU secretary-general K.C. Tyagi on Sunday when he said that his party was the "big brother in Bihar".
The statement prompted an immediate rebuttal from Union minister Ram Kripal Yadav. "Narendra Modi would be the face of the Lok Sabha polls," Ram Kripal, the MP from Patliputra, asserted.
The war of words escalated on Monday with senior JDU minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav warning that there are no "givers and beggars" in alliances. "We have more MLAs than the BJP," he pointed out.
The JDU's aggressive posturing ahead of the NDA meeting scheduled on June 7 is being seen as an attempt to arm-twist the BJP on seat sharing for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, due in less than a year. The NDA allies have begun pressuring the BJP post the recent byelection losses suffered by the party.
A section of JDU leaders wants the 2009 Lok Sabha poll model to be followed under which the party contested 25 of Bihar's 40 seats and the BJP the remaining 15.
The BJP was quick to dismiss the formula. "Why 2009? Why not 2014?" countered a BJP leader, speaking under cover of anonymity, recalling that the JDU had managed to win only two seats with chief minister Nitish Kumar as its mascot in 2014.
Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi dubbed the whole episode a "non-issue".
"When the hearts have met, seats are non-issues. They will be sorted out. Nitishji is NDA's biggest leader in Bihar. We will seek votes in the Lok Sabha polls on the basis of development work by Nitishji and the face of Narendra Modi as our PM," he said.
Even JDU leaders admitted in private that it was no longer possible for the party to contest 25 seats under the NDA because the ground realties have changed. "The BJP has 22 seats, LJP 6 and RLSP 3. It is going to be difficult for these parties to make a sacrifice. However, we will be expecting a respectable number of seats," said a JDU leader.
The restlessness is not only about seats. The NDA-II in Bihar lacks the co-ordination between allies as existed in NDA-I.
The chief minister did not call a joint meeting of the NDA legislature parties when the Assembly and Council are in session, unlike in NDA-I. BJP ministers made the completion of four years of the Narendra Modi government a solo affair by holding news conferences on their own, listing the achievements of their government and departments. JDU ministers were ignored.
Nitish is reportedly upset over the fact that the Centre sanctioned only Rs 1700 crore for flood relief against his government's demand for Rs 7,636 crore. A minor issue like transferring railway land to the state government to build a road has been left hanging. Nitish is also not satisfied with allocation of funds under the PM's economic package to Bihar. Most of all, JDU sources indicated, he holds BJP leaders responsible for complete alienation of the Muslims owing to the aggressive Ram Navami processions.
