A political boomerang

The BJP's misadventure in Bihar has paradoxically strengthened the RJD in its north Bihar strongholds and served to unite a hitherto-fractious Opposition at the national level on a matter of principle.

KALYAN CHAUDHURI
in Patna

PRAVEEN SWAMI
in New Delhi

MUCH the same bewilderment that marks English batsmen as they square up to face the famed leg-spinner Shane Warne overcomes the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition Government as it contemplates Laloo Prasad Yadav. Even before efforts to dismiss the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Government in Bihar were summarily terminated by President K.R. Narayanan, the BJP appeared wholly unable to read Laloo Prasad's skilfully crafted political game. In Bihar, the BJP's action has had the paradoxical impact of strengthening the RJD in its north Bihar strongholds. And even worse for the BJP, its Bihar adventure has brought about the first meaningful united Opposition action since the alliance took power in New Delhi in May. None in the BJP camp appears enthusiastic about the prospect of having to play a second innings.

Laloo Prasad's ability to shape the terms of political engagement in Bihar was evident at an early stage in the Bihar crisis. In a well-calculated manoeuvre, Chief Minister Rabri Devi moved to secure a vote of confidence in the Bihar Assembly on September 21. Although the Assembly session had been convened exclusively to discuss the Bihar State Reorganisation Bill, which seeks to carve out a Vananchal state from southern Bihar, the vote of confidence was sought in order to ensure that the BJP was left with no overt reason to dismiss the State Government. The BJP, the Samata Party, the Janata Dal and the Jharkhand parties walked out, faced with the certainty of defeat, and the Rabri Devi Government sailed through, 190 to none. The Assembly also rejected the Vananchal bill. On this issue the RJD was backed by 13 of the 29 Congress(I) MLAs, all five MLAs of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and 11 independents.

Apart from leaving the BJP with no reason to claim that the RJD Government did not enjoy a majority in the Assembly, the vote of confidence had significant implications at the State level. State BJP chief and Opposition leader Suresh Modi pointed out that the RJD's new-found opposition to Vananchal was designed to strengthen its support base in north and central Bihar. It would of course cost the RJD votes in south Bihar, Modi said, but the party had no real base there in the first place. Of 81 Assembly seats in south Bihar, the RJD has only 11. Secondly, the vote signalled an electorally potent rapprochement with the Congress(I). Although the Congress(I)'s central leadership had signalled its support for Vananchal, the State unit of the party was clearly divided on this issue. More important, however, it had come up with unconditional support during the confidence vote, with even the 16 pro-Vananchal MLAs backing the RJD.

DEEPAK KUMAR
Laloo Prasad Yadav leads a march to the Raj Bhavan in Patna on September 25 to protest against the move to dismiss the Rabri Devi Government.

The BJP and its allies had clearly been ambushed. A dismissal of the RJD Government now held out many dangers, particularly since the Samata Party was no longer certain that it wished to face the elections that would follow. A senior State BJP leader told Frontline that he believed that neither his party nor the Samata Party would gain if early elections were held. Laloo Prasad, he pointed out, would be able to capitalise on the anti-Vananchal sentiment in north and central Bihar, leading possibly to block voting on regional lines. This would hurt the Samata Party more than the BJP, since the bulk of its support comes from this region. Although senior Samata Party leaders such as Defence Minister George Fernandes continued to argue for the RJD Government's dismissal, the political considerations had become more complex.

A second possibility was for the BJP and the Samata Party to engineer a split. State BJP leaders began discussing the possibility immediately after news of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's decision reached Modi's office just after 1-30 p.m. on September 22, even as Modi was holding a press conference. The key problem, however, was that the BJP simply did not have the numbers to form a government. The BJP and the Samata Party put together command 51 MLAs, well short of the half-way point of 160 in a House of 321 with four seats vacant. The Jharkhand parties were spluttering with rage at what they perceived to be Laloo Prasad's stab-in-the back on the Vananchal issue, but even their 21 MLAs made little difference. What the BJP sought to achieve was a vertical split in the RJD, which has 146 MLAs - a grand version of the coup engineered by Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh last year.

In the event, the coup bid fell apart. For one, Rabri Devi had done not a little to secure her flanks, particularly by expanding the State Cabinet in the wake of the confidence vote. More important, the Congress(I) and the Left parties backed the Government on this issue. September 23, the day after the Union Cabinet recommended the use of Article 356, saw a Statewide bandh. Called separately by the RJD and the CPI(M), the bandh succeeded in shutting down most of Bihar. Sporadic violence was reported: a Vishwa Hindu Parishad activist was murdered in Bhagalpur, and railway traffic in several areas was disrupted. The next day, Laloo Prasad conducted a mock cremation ceremony for Vajpayee and Advani to mark the beginning of a Dasara-season protest programme. Seven Left parties, the Congress(I) and the RJD jointly observed a protest day on September 25. Legislators of the RJD, the Congress(I) and the CPI(M) jointly staged a protest outside the Raj Bhavan in Patna later that afternoon.

Critically, the agitation programme in Bihar found support nationwide. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi described the Union Cabinet's recommendation as "a slur on Indian democracy". In distant Rajasthan, State Congress(I) president Ashok Gehlot reminded Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat of the "very eloquent speeches against the misuse of Article 356" that he had made in the past. In Haryana, a moribund Congress(I) unit was inspired to hold a series of district-level protests against the prospect of the RJD's dismissal. CPI(M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet demanded a special session of Parliament to discuss the situation in Bihar. The BJP, he argued, was seeking to bypass Parliament on the issue. His demand for a special session was endorsed by both the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Samajwadi Party.

Such organised protest had not taken place since the BJP took power in New Delhi. Even more embarrassing may have been the sniping from the BJP's allies. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah gave expression to his displeasure at the use of Article 356, which, he said, "should be put in the dustbin". Shiromani Akali Dal MP Prem Singh Chandumajra articulated his party's disquiet over the use of Article 356. In Chennai, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Jayalalitha demanded that the efforts to split the RJD be stopped (see box). Her party would not support such an enterprise elsewhere. Jayalalitha called for prompt elections in Bihar if the Government was dismissed, a prospect the BJP-Samata Party alliance wished to avoid. Events were going Laloo Prasad's way, leaving his opponents in Bihar and New Delhi distinctly uncomfortable.

By September 25, the RJD was beginning to exhibit symptoms of nerves. Rabri Devi's desperate efforts to secure an audience with President Narayanan failed to show results. Even as the Bihar Chief Minister held a press conference rebutting Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari's charges, BJP leaders in New Delhi were letting it be known that they expected the President to accept the Cabinet recommendation. That turned out to be undiluted rumour. By that midnight, news of Narayanan's note sending back the Cabinet recommendation for reconsideration reached Patna. Laloo Prasad made no effort to conceal his delight at a subsequent press conference, held at the Chief Minister's Anne Marg residence. "This is a damning indictment," he said, "of the BJP-Samata Party alliance's attempt to abuse the Constitution."

Those sentiments were widely shared. Surjeet demanded that the contents of President Narayanan's note be made public, so a debate could take place on the integrity of the BJP's action. Asked by a journalist for his opinion on the law and order situation in Bihar, Surjeet invited the interrogator's attention to the situation in the BJP-ruled national capital, which was even worse. CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan, for his part, said that the BJP's handling of Bihar "displayed its arrogance, and its efforts to pressure the President". Congress(I) spokesperson Oscar Fernandes claimed that public opinion was overwhelmingly arrayed against the use of Article 356 in Bihar. Governor Bhandari came in for particular criticism with all Opposition parties demanding his recall. Laloo Prasad, speaking in Patna, acidly suggested that Bhandari would be happier in his earlier home, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, than in the Raj Bhavan.

As news came in that the Government had, for the moment, decided not to force the President to accede to its demand for dismissal, the Opposition declared victory. However, the Bihar units of the BJP and the Samata Party felt otherwise. Senior State leaders made it clear that they were opposed both to the President's action and what they perceived as their central leadership's cowardice. Modi demanded to know just what the criteria the President would have for dismissing a government if the Lakshmanpur-Bathe massacre of last December, the murder of three MLAs in two months, and gross corruption and financial misconduct did not represent a breakdown of the constitutional machinery. Somewhat mystifyingly, Modi charged the President with having ignored the legal criteria laid down in the signal S.R. Bommai case. Privately, BJP leaders said that had the Cabinet forced the dismissal of the Rabri Devi Government, a split in the RJD could have been brought about after Laloo Prasad surrendered on October 28 to the Special Court that was trying the fodder scam case.

What impact will the BJP's Bihar adventure have on India's political landscape? While Laloo Prasad succeeded in meeting senior Congress(I) leaders to thank them for their support, he could secure only a brief interaction with Sonia Gandhi when she passed through Patna airport. Some sections within the Congress(I) see the RJD as an obstacle to the party's plans to reinvent itself in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Plans for a strategic alliance, sources say, can only be made slowly and with care. Both Surjeet and Bardhan have made it clear that their support for the RJD was on the single issue of Article 356 and was not a broad endorsement of Laloo Prasad's politics. But the larger point of the Bihar showdown has not been lost. A disunited and fractious Opposition has for the first time displayed the ability to coalesce on a matter of principle. Whatever course short-term centre-Left alliance politics takes, the implications for the future are none too difficult to see.

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