 "R S Pandey")
Former petroleum secretary and now a BJP MLA in the Bihar Assembly representing Bagaha, R S Pandey tells Aditi Phadnis the state faces an ominous future
You’ve been secretary with the government of India. Becoming an MLA doesn’t seem to be a logical career progression…
I served as steel secretary and retired as petroleum secretary and later I was appointed interlocutor for the Naga peace talks. In December 2013, I resigned and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). I belong to Bihar - the West Champaran district. I was told I would be contesting the Lok Sabha election. Somehow the ticket did not come by. I was then made a member of the National Executive of the BJP. When the Bihar election was announced I was told I have to fight from the Bagaha constituency. It was my district, where I was born. The seat was a Janata Dal-United (JD-U) seat.
So you fought against heavy odds…
Yes, everything seemed stacked against me. The constituency has only 11 per cent upper castes to which I belong. It is an extremely backward constituency…
So how did you win?
My own caste is just seven per cent of the population in my constituency. The other castes are Banias (12 per cent), Muslims, who are generally anti-BJP, 17 per cent; Yadavs 15 per cent; and Mallah and other allied groups, 14 per cent. I sensed that a caste appeal was neither desirable nor applicable in my case. So I campaigned on two planks. I used to tell voters: "When you fall ill, do you choose a doctor on the basis of caste? Do you choose your lawyer on the basis of caste? If not, then why choose a political representative on the basis of caste and expect development? Poverty is also a kind of disease. To cure it, you need the right sort of doctor. You should select your representative on the basis of merit. If you think I have merit, you should vote for me."
Is that all you noticed?
Then I noticed another thing. Groups of Dalit women would come to me. They would say: "Narendra Modi came to us for votes one year ago. What has he done for us?" I would ask them: "What's the problem?" They would point to the road and say: "Look at this. This is the road." It was not a road, it was a dirt track. Then they would point to their hut and say: "This is my house" - a dilapidated structure that a puff of wind could blow away. They told me they were supposed to have ration cards but they had none. Then they pointed to the pucca houses across the road and said: "They are not supposed to have ration cards - but they do. Why not us?" "We have no chapakal (water tap), no power…"
The problem seemed to be that all these things were promised to them in the Lok Sabha campaign. But these things were not to be provided by Delhi in the first place - it was the government in Patna that was supposed to give them these things. To me, all this sounded like massive anti-incumbency. But unfortunately, my party did not leverage this enough. Our campaign was more pro-Delhi, of course, during the Lok Sabha election, understandably because it was Delhi that was to form a government; but also during the Assembly elections. If there was no job in the village, it was Modi's failure. Was it? Of course not! The fact is, even after 10 years of JD-U rule, a large number of people remained deprived of basic necessities. We needed to have highlighted this. I tried to do so. Both these things worked. I broke the conventional caste equations - all castes voted for me, even the Mallah and Yadav; and I polled 74,000 votes, winning by a margin of 8,000.
Many in your party alleged that the BJP bought and sold tickets…
There was room for improvement.
Has anything changed in your village since you were a little boy growing up here?
Very little. Change has come about in the whole world. In India, there are more roads, more schools, more medical centres… But in my part of India, per capita income has steadily been going down. Infant mortality levels are the worst in India. Malnourishment is the worst in the country. Other human development indices are either the lowest or among the lowest. The state of Bihar is backward. But my district is one of the most backward even in Bihar. We have to ask ourselves why.
The reason is our system suffers from political deficiency. The Centre must look after all parts of India. But the state governance system has not done so well.
People always vote on the basis of caste. All over the world, people vote on the principle of party, development… but in most African countries and in our part of the world, caste not development continues to be the ruling principle. That is why there is urgent requirement that more good people join politics. I have been in administration all my life. All over India the same calibre of IAS officers are posted. It is the same level of administrative leadership. But political leadership? That is different. It is the bane of Bihar that even in the 21st century, knowing the state is backward, knowing we desperately need better leadership, people still vote according to caste.
But your party announced that it would consciously avoid caste appeals. And yet, despite such a massive victory in the Lok Sabha elections, you faced such a massive defeat months later in the Vidhan Sabha elections…
That is because of a very skilful caste equation put together by the parties opposed to us. Muslim, Yadav, Kurmi… it was a deadly combination. During the Lok Sabha election, the Opposition was not united. Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar fought against each other. Muslim votes were also politically divided. In this election, they united against us.
Then in the Lok Sabha, there was a lot of anti-incumbency against the Congress - so much so that it translated as a pro-BJP wave. People wanted change. This translated as a tsunami against Congress - and anti-BJP votes got divided.
Going forward, what does Bihar need and what is it getting?
The bane of Bihar is caste. You can overcome this by government performance. And we are seeing in practice the performance of the government. Crime rates are soaring. People are once again in the grips of the feeling that they are not safe. There are contract killings taking place, law and order is crumbling, criminals are jubilant that it is now their government that is in power, so they can now do what they want.
The delivery mechanism, especially for farmers, is dismal. Ninety per cent of the state is dependent on farming. And the state government doesn't seem to care. Let me give you an example. Farmers growing sugarcane have not been paid for nearly 90 days. There was a big hue and cry about this. Usually the state government says: We will pay at last year's rates. But neither did the government announce new rates; nor did it say it will pay at last year's rates. The result was farmers were paid nothing at all. One feels sad that so many people had to suffer because the government was unable to get its act together in time. This is simply non-performance. Bihar deserves a pro-people, pro-growth government. But the signs for the state are ominous.
