Patna: Will Lok Janshakti Party chief Chirag Paswan pull against Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar, what his father, Ram Vilas Paswan had done to Lalu Prasad Yadav in 2005?Poll watchers remember that it was Ram Vilas Paswan who had actually turned the table on the 15-year-old Lalu-Rabri regime. The turmoil created by his political operations had smoothened the way for Nitish Kumar.In 2004, after the UPA-I government headed by Manmohan Singh replaced the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA, Lalu had insisted on the Railway Ministry for himself. He eventually bagged it, even though Ram Vilas Paswan too had his eyes on the same ministry. Paswan had to contend with the chemical and fertilizers portfolio.Smarting under the ignominy of losing what he wanted most to Lalu, the Lok Janshakti Party patriarch had turned vengeful. While staying in the UPA as a minister, the LJP broke the alliance with Lalu’s Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar.He fielded his party candidate against all 178 candidates of the RJD in the February 2005 assembly polls in Bihar.The 2005 Assembly elections threw a viciously fractured mandate in which the JD(U)-BJP alliance fell far short of majority. The LJP had won 29 assembly seats and the RJD had bagged 81 – emerging the single largest party.Also read: Will an RJD-Congress-Left Alliance Ride the Anti-Incumbency Wave in Bihar?The LJP, then, could have supported the reinstatement of Rabri Devi. But despite UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s cajoling, the senior Paswan stuck to his guns.Bihar went under President’s rule and in the next nine months, Nitish – possessed by the desire to become the chief minister and supported by the BJP whole-heartedly – befriended Jehanabad’s King Mahendra. The pharma baron, who later was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, provided the financial help Nitish needed in splitting Paswan’s LJP.Many winners from Paswan’s party thus joined JD(U). Assembly elections took place again in November 2005. Ram Vilas’s LJP contested independently again – this time winning only 17 seats. LJP’s winning MLAs, by then lured to NDA, eventually securred the alliance 141 seats and its government in Bihar.There are some striking similarities between the scenarios of 2005 and 2020. Vicious anti-incumbency had accumulated against the Lalu-Rabri regime. The fodder scam had taken its toll with Lalu passing the baton to Rabri and losing control over politics and governance.Also read: Here’s (Probably) Why Nitish Kumar’s 2.5-Hour Speech Got More ‘Dislikes’ Than ‘Likes’Nitish too has accumulated similar anti-incumbency sentiments. If the fodder scam had dented Lalu’s image, Nitish’s rule has witnessed the far bigger Srijan scam, denting his image as an honest leader. Besides, Nitish has lost his image as a credible secular leader by ditching the 2015 mandate, going back to the BJP and supporting everything that comes with the RSS-BJP agenda.However, Chiraj has certain disadvantages, compared to his father’s situation.First, Chirag, still a rookie in politics, certainly lacks the experience in manoeuvring that his father – the champion of many battles – has shown. The senior Paswan is hospitalised at present.What is disadvantage to Chirag is advantage to Nitish. The Bihar chief minister – a member of Bihar’s famed triumvirate of Lalu, Paswan and himself – is a proven operator in “tact, guile and camouflage”.Moreover, the media which has always played a pivotal role in creating perception has also undergone a change.The media which was relatively independent in the pre-Modi-Shah era had rightly gone hammer and tongs on the Rs 950 crore fodder scam cases that were being investigated by then CBI joint director U.N. Biswas. But neither is the CBI investigating the Srijan scam with any vigour and not is local media following it up. As a result, despite the fact that many of Nitish’s blue eyed officers and other eminent citizens getting charge-sheeted in the Srijan scam, he has managed to retain his image as a corruption free leader despite facts suggesting otherwise.Also read: Amidst JD(U) and BJP’s Eagerness, RJD Questions Authenticity of Raghuvansh’s Last LettersThere are, meanwhile, news reports doing the rounds that there is split in the LJP and its four MPs have been opposing Chirag’s decision to fight against Nitish. Chirag had announced that his party would stay with the BJP but would field candidates in 143 seats – all the possible seats in which the JD(U) and its newfound ally, Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM will contest.Earlier, perception had gained ground that Chirag was relentlessly attacking Nitish at the behest of the BJP. Now, it appears that BJP is entirely in support of Nitish’s JD(U), offering barely 20 to 22 seats to Chirag against his demand of over 40 seats.Chirag met the BJP chief J.P. Nadda on Monday night but that meeting was said to be inconclusive.Tejaswhi Yadav who is projecting himself as the chief ministerial face against Nitish finds himself almost in the same position in which Nitish was, ahead of the February elections in 2005. Rabri was seeing anti-incumbency stirs but people were yet to see a credible alternative to her in Nitish. Similarly, people are, apparently, not yet seeing Tejashwi as a credible alternative to Nitish.The setting is strikingly similar but the players have changed.Nalin Verma is a senior journalist and author of Gopalganj to Raisina—My Political Journey, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s autobiography. He has also authored The Greatest Folk Tales of Bihar.
