Laloo to give NDA a tough fight

RJD chief sews up formidable alliance in Bihar, Jharkhand

The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) carefully crafted strategy to keep the opposition in disarray appears to have come a cropper in Bihar and Jharkhand ""the two states that added 40 Lok Sabha seats to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) tally in 1999 Lok Sabha elections.

While Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Laloo Prasad Yadav has put up a formidable alliance with the Congress in Bihar, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Lok Janashakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan, the Congress has roped in powerful tribal leader Shibu Soren and his Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) to work unitedly for the elections.

Even BJP sources admitted that these developments would adversely affect the party's political gameplan in two crucial states, where the party leadership was expecting to repeat the 1999 Lok Sabha election performance.

With Jharkhand coming into existence as a separate state, the BJP leadership was expecting to maximise its gains in 14 Lok Sabha seats on account of the performance of the BJP-led state government and popularity of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

At present , the NDA has 11 out of 14 seats in the state. "If not more, we are expecting to retain our tally," said a senior BJP leader monitoring the development in the state.

But the electoral pact between the Congress and the JMM (Soren) may emerge as a formidable axis to the challenge the NDA on every seat.

With the Congress having a strong support base in the region and Soren's influence in a substantial section of the tribals, the combination could be formidable, BJP sources said.

A section of the central BJP leadership had initially approached Soren to formalise a tie-up. But they gave up after the party's state unit resisted any tie-up with the JMM as it would have further marginalised their existence.

There is a section in the BJP, which believes that Soren's hold among tribals is unshakeable and thinks that the JMM leader is a progressive tribal leader who must be supported. But the local leadership is against Soren.

Since then, BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan has been keen to see the Opposition disunited in the state than forging an alliance.

Another factor appears to be working against the BJP is the faction-ridden politics within the BJP and the anti-incumbency factor against the state government.

Similarly in Bihar, there was a desperate attempt by NDA convenor and Defence Minister George Fernandes to bring back Paswan to the NDA.

Though Paswan's LJP accounts for only two seats in the Lok Sabha, his influence in the Paswan community - comprising the largest chunk of Dalit voters -is expected to change equations in many constituencies.

Paswan has so far indicated that he would cast his lot with the Congress-Laloo combine in the state.

What appears to have given the Congress-Laloo combine an edge over the NDA is the move to accommodate Sharad Pawar's NCP, a very marginal force in the state but having relevance in the present political context.

Yadav is learnt to have agreed to concede two Lok Sabha seats for two prominent NCP leaders- Jagannath Mishra and Tariq Anwar.

The fact that these two leaders would contest under Yadav's banner is expected to neutralise the hostility between upper castes and Yadav in at least in these two constituencies.

Quite clearly, the Congress-Laloo combination along with Paswan and the NCP appears to be on a stronger wicket this time as compared to the past.

Though the BJP strategists have been successful in scuttling tie-up between the Congress and the BSP in Uttar Pradesh, they have lost out their first round in Laloo's Bihar and Jharkhand.