New Delhi, April 16: The BJP is unlikely to project a chief ministerial candidate in the Bihar Assembly polls and will stick to its Lok Sabha allies - the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party - instead of trying to enlarge the NDA.
The party's stand to reconcile to Jitan Ram Manjhi's decision to go solo was also a part of the broad contours of the BJP's strategy for the Bihar polls that emerged when party president Amit Shah was in Patna on April 14 and part of April 15 to address a workers' convention.
A central BJP leader from Bihar, who was in Patna during Shah's visit, said Shah spoke individually to as many as 40 leaders without the presence of the general secretary-cum-" prabhari" (minder), Bhupendra Yadav.
"The idea was to exchange views freely and share feedback candidly," the leader said.
Although the Janata fraternity's merger was not announced then, Shah factored the development in his calculations and felt that the BJP's tactic should be to "expose the chinks in the Janata's armour" and more importantly, cover its own flanks.
A source admitted the party's main worry was contesting seats that were uncontested for the past 30 years (after the alliance with the Samata Party and later, the Janata Dal United, was cemented), figuring out the caste equations in them and seeking out the "right" nominees.
The second source of bother was how allies Ram Vilas Paswan and Upendra Kushwaha would conduct the seat-sharing negotiations.
Last, after Dal (United) rebel Manjhi announced his new party would contest all the 243 Assembly seats and virtually shut the door for an alliance/understanding on the BJP, the party reconciled itself to the inevitability for life without Manjhi but was still grappling with what that meant. "What shape Manjhi's independent politics takes is something we must watch closely," a BJP source said.
Those in the BJP who had interacted with the Mahadalit leader recently claimed to being "reassured" by Manjhi's statement that his first priority was defeating Nitish Kumar. But some of the party's local leaders stressed to Shah it was "important" to keep Manjhi by his side and give an impression that the BJP was "Mahadalit-friendly". "The leaders said he had awakened a sense of self-respect among the Mahadalits like Lalu Prasad had among the backward castes years ago and, therefore, ideally some modality of partnership with him should be explored," a source said.
Among the other possible elements in the BJP's Bihar blueprint were foregrounding Narendra Modi. The BJP had put him in front in the Assembly elections that were held after the Lok Sabha polls except in Delhi where it had gambled with an "outsider", Kiran Bedi, and failed. "Our pitch will be juxtaposing our achievements at the Centre and in Bihar with Nitish's and allowing people to judge whose record is better," a source said.
The BJP seemed to be convinced that Modi still clicked among the backward castes. In his Bihar Lok Sabha poll campaign, Modi had referred to his backward caste origin a couple of times. "In the process, he connected well with them," the source said.
The BJP would project that the Nitish of 2015 was not the Nitish of 2005 and 2010, when he was the BJP's partner in the elections. "He should realise the pro-Nitish elements always saw the BJP as his natural ally," the source said.
It would play on people's perceived "fears" about the return of Lalu via Nitish. "The mention of Lalu is unnerving them. He is like Ajit Jogi in Chhattisgarh. Utter his name and people get put off," the source said.
Caution
Union minister Upendra Kushwaha - the chief of the BJP's ally RLSP - today cautioned the BJP against taking the Janata parivar merger lightly. He said in Patna Lalu and Nitish together was a force to reckon with in Bihar.
