How Mulayam dealt a double blow to Lalu
The five-party "maha-gathbandhan", which was being built so assiduously for the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections, has started crumbling even before it could get completed. On September 3, Samajwadi Party (SP) walked out of the grand alliance, rejecting the offer to contest five of the 243 seats and announcing that it would go it alone. Chinks have also appeared in the six-party national-level Janata Parivar comprising the SP, Janata Dal (United) [JD(U)], Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Janata Dal (Secular) [JD(S)], Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Samajwadi Janata Party (SJP), with SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav as its chief. The SP's decision to pull out deals a major blow not only to the grand alliance but it also goes a long way in helping the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the poll-bound state and the Centre, and these are the reasons why:
Severe jolt to grand alliance
On August 12, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad had announced the seat-sharing formula for the grand alliance. It received the first jolt when former Union minister Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) stomped out of the alliance rejecting the offer of contesting just three seats. The JD(U) and RJD had decided to contest 100 seats each and gave 40 seats to the Congress. On the other hand, even the Bihar unit of SP felt slighted on not being given any seat. However, Lalu underestimated the discontent and said he would placate Mulayam. But when the displeasure started growing among the rank and file of the SP, Lalu agreed to give five seats to it - two seats from the RJD's quota and the three offered to the NCP. Though the SP demanded 17 seats, it was ready to settle down for a minimum of 12 seats. Mulayam expressed his displeasure over the seat-sharing formula by skipping, at the eleventh hour, the much-hyped August 30 Swabhiman Rally of the grand alliance in Patna. Addressed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, besides Lalu and Nitish, Mulayam scaled down the SP's participation by sending his younger brother Shivpal Yadav instead.
The SP's exit from the grand alliance means a major jolt to the alliance in more ways than one. It sends across a message of disintegration of the grand alliance which was given a pompous name of "maha-gathbandhan". It was the NCP first and now the SP. The development will have a demoralising effect on the party cadre. It will also weaken the alliance's standing in the eyes of the voters who will be dissuaded to support a conglomeration which is falling apart even before the race has actually started. At the moment, the grand alliance stands as a weakened rival to the NDA, which remains united. Unlike the "maha-gathbandhan", the BJP is moving very cautiously and slowly towards sharing of seats with its allies and sending out a message of a mighty united front.
Personal embarrassment for Lalu
Among all the key players, the Bihari Yadav strongman has suffered the severest setback by the SP's exit. The most significant takeaway from the Lalu's Swabhiman Rally speech was his focus on Yadav unity. But just within four days of those tall claims, Mulayam has quit the grand alliance, embarrassing Lalu the most. The RJD chief, in his speech, tried to ignite passions among his caste fellows when he accused BJP leader Sushil Modi of pointing fingers at Yaduvanshis by alleging that his advent had led to a spike in crime graph. He also claimed that the attempts of the BJP to create a divide among Yadavs will not succeed. But his claims appear hollow. "BJP wants to break Yadavs. Will Yadavs split? Will Yadavs leave Lalu? No, they will not. If Yadavs want to split then they should tell me now. They think Yadavs are fools…" he said.
The winning formula of both Lalu and Mulayam in their respective states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh is the Muslim-Yadav (M-Y) votebank. Mulayam's exit from the grand alliance will weaken Lalu's talk of Yadav unity in the state, hitting at Lalu's mainstay of electoral politics. It is also a double blow to Lalu because his daughter is married to Mulayam grand-nephew. Lalu, who oftens flaunts his relation with Mulayam, was sure to placate his "samdhi" on the issue of ticket distribution.
Advantage BJP
The SP contesting the Bihar elections alone will only help the BJP. The RJD is already threatened by a slew of measures the BJP has taken very consciously and gradually over the years to hit Lalu's Muslim-Yadav, particularly Yadav, votebank. Mulayam's exit will only help in dividing the Yadav votes. On the other hand, the BJP has created its own army of Yadav leaders who will pull away Yadav voters from the RJD like Nand Kishore Yadav (leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly), Ram Kripal Yadav (Union minister of state for drinking water and sanitation), Hukumdev Narayan Yadav (Lok Sabha MP from Madhubani) and Bhupender Yadav (BJP's national general secretary in-charge of Bihar elections and Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan). Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who defeated JD(U) president Sharad Yadav in the Madhepura Lok Sabha constituency in 2014 on an RJD ticket, has created his own front after revolting against Lalu's "dynasty politics" and is now aligning with the BJP.
At the national level, Mulayam's proximity to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP, in recent months, has become quite evident. The SP had played a crucial role in the survival of Manmohan Singh's UPA-2 by giving outside support, but now it has also started maintaining a distance from the Congress. During the last monsoon session of Parliament, Mulayam fell apart from the Congress and criticised it for the continuous stalling of proceedings, isolating the principal opposition party. It will not be a wonder if the SP helps the NDA in Rajya Sabha during the passage of crucial Bills in the forthcoming winter session of Parliament by abstaining during voting.
The NDA has not yet announced the seat-sharing formula among its alliance partners. It remains to be seen how far the BJP is successful in keeping all its allies pleased at a time when all of them are demanding a large share of seats.