The recent rapprochement between former Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and RJD supremo Lalu Yadav after two decades of bitter rivalry has caused surprise. Mr Yadav’s support to Mr Kumar’s Rajya Sabha candidates recently on being asked couldn’t have been taken for granted just because both run “secular” parties and oppose the BJP. The development throws up two questions that pertain to the wider political landscape.
The first concerns the state level: can the BJP, after its impressive recent Lok Sabha victory, come to power in Bihar after its break-up with Mr Kumar’s JD(U)? If it can show it can, then it would have captured a major Hindi heartland state, and possibly extinguished the backward caste “secular” challenge for some time to come. For this to happen, it is possible the BJP and its new partner, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP, will have to manoeuvre an early election in the state. However, if the project fails, the BJP would be getting a setback early in its career as the leader of the national government.
The second question relates to the national polity. The coming together of former friends turned bitter political enemies in Bihar can conceivably have a “carry-on” effect in next-door UP, and at the national level in Delhi, through a broad-spectrum understanding that includes the Congress. The BJP might then conjecturally be faced with a “secular” pole at the political level — something that did not happen in the Parliament election.
