Aditi Phadnis: Bihar's most-wanted

PLAIN POLITICS

Ramvilas Paswan has come to represent the anti-Lalu sentiment in the state.

The Janata Dal U wants him back in the party so badly, it is even prepared to let him become chief minister of Bihar, overlooking the claims of it's own man for the job, Nitish Kumar.

Despite verbal guerilla warfare between senior cabinet minister Lalu Prasad and him, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has elected to use persuasion to get the leaders to behave, rather than take action against him. Ramvilas Paswan is in the enviable position of being the man everyone is seeking desperately in Bihar. Why?

The answer is obvious: the Bihar assembly election due in February next year. Despite controlling only about 8 per cent of the popular vote in Bihar, and despite having just about 8 seats in the Bihar assembly, Ramvilas Paswan is coming to represent the consolidation of the entire anti-Lalu sentiment in the state. How this has come about and how it is going to play out is another matter. But Paswan could become the symbol of a double liberation of Bihar "" in terms of caste as well as from Lalu-rule.

The sceptics say this is rubbish. Hasn't the Lok Sabha election just concluded? And didn't Lalu demonstrate once again that his sway over Bihar continues to be unquestioned, that he is invincible?

But consider. The Lok Sabha election was fought by Lalu and Paswan together. The BJP got 14.6 per cent of the vote, the JDU got 23 per cent. The RJD got 30 per cent and Paswan's personal vote "" because his party, the Lok Janashakti is just a name, hardly an organisation "" was 8 per cent.

If Paswan had not helped Lalu form the government, he would have faced some difficulty.

In many ways the Lok Sabha election was a turning point in Paswan's self-realisation. All political pundits said that the Muslims and the Yadavs combined to give Lalu Prasad the kind of backing he got. But the nature of the backing has changed. Muslims are undoubtedly better represented and safer in Bihar than anywhere else in India.

They have representatives in the Bihar government, they have the assurance that as a reliable vote bank they will always be crucial to Lalu Prasad's scheme of things. But this is the first generation of post-Mandal, post-Lalu Muslims in Bihar which has seen the advantages that can accrue from having a stake in the governance of the state. This generation has been in power for 20 years now.

But the turnover of politicians in Bihar is rapid. The second line of leadership which wants a share in the power cake is chomping at the bit. Younger Muslim politicians in the state can see that with Lalu continuing in power, his Muslim lieutenants are unlikely to change. They want another pole of power that they can align with to get a chance to rule Bihar. They see Paswan as a possible option.

Paswan realised this soon after the Lok Sabha election and began distancing himself from Lalu. The partnership was put under some strain on the issue of portfolio allocation (Paswan wanted a better portfolio) when the UPA government came to power, but it broke following slights and insults to Paswan by Lalu "" especially after the Madhepura byelection when erstwhile Paswan supporter Pappu Yadav was 'stolen' by Lalu Yadav and fielded as the RJD candidate.

Now, with two months to go for the assembly elections, Paswan is trying to woo Muslims with a vengeance because he knows that if even a section of the Muslims desert Lalu, his continuance in the state will be difficult.

If he announced at a massive rally in Patna last week that he supports 10 per cent reservations for Muslims in government service and wants to open a university for Muslims along the lines of the one created by Mulayam Singh Yadav in UP, it was a calculated appeal designed to act as bait for upwardly mobile ambitious Muslims.

At his homes in Patna and Delhi, for every two dalits who come to him for tickets, now, there is one skull cap among the crowds. Before this, Muslims did not consider Ramvilas a serious or credible alternative.

This is the reason that Paswan is resisting blandishments from the Janata Dal U. Last week he deigned to inform them that he might consider an alliance with them if they left the National Democratic Alliance and severed their ties with the BJP.

Paswan knows that he can do nothing alone. But aligning formally with the JDU "" and the BJP by extension "" at this stage would be a big mistake. BJP leaders are privately saying that an informal alliance is a distinct possibility.

They are also saying unofficially that if Paswan opts for state politics, he will have to give up a cabinet ministership "" which is, after all, a big sacrifice so he will expect, quite legitimately, to be compensated. In other words, the chief ministership would be his if in a post election scenario the LJP, BJP and JDU were to get enough seats to form a government.

Obviously, things are still settling down in Bihar. But one thing is clear "" that the contest for Bihar is now between Lalu Prasad and Ramvilas Paswan. The BJP-JDU is somewhat on the back foot. And for all the Hindutva talk by the BJP, in Bihar there is no Hindutva "" the slogan is Bihari pride. This itself has been done with an eye to possible post-election alliances.

If the JDU-BJP has lost ground, it is because Nitish Kumar, for all his competence and clean image, somehow lacks Paswan's aggressive appeal and charisma. If Lalu is aggressive, Paswan is doubly aggressive. Aggression in this state is a technique of political management.

Paswan's dalit politics has come a long way since 1969 when he was first elected to the Bihar State Assembly as a member of the Samyukta Socialist Party for reasons of political convenience "" actually, he swore by the Naxal movement and spent eight months in Bhagalpur jail in the early 1970s because of his association with radical groups.

However, in 1974, with the Emergency and the rise of Jayaprakash Narayan, he became deeply influenced by the JP movement and was arrested right in the beginning of the Emergency spending nearly 18 months in jail.

In 1977 he won a reserved Parliamentary seat for the Janata Party (Hajipur) by the highest margin ever. Except between 1984-89, he has been a member of the Lok Sabha. So we're talking serious politics here, a man who has actually participated in a mass movement, not some Page Three gadfly equivalent in the Lok Sabha. He has that image because he has been part of so many parties. But make no mistake. The vote is his own.

With two months still to go for the Bihar election, how Paswan will do his balancing act, and how Lalu Prasad will respond to this new headache in Bihar is to be seen. But one thing is certain: if Paswan loses the challenge this time, he will have to return to Lalu on his knees. And if that happens, there will be no liberation from Lalu in Bihar.