Murmurs for course correction within Bihar BJP

A senior BJP leader from Bihar said that some signals are clear, including that the ruling National Democratic Alliance’s bet on Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras to keep Paswan voters in its kitty has not brought desired results, with the Dalit community being seen as more sympathetic to Chirag Paswan during his various programmes.

Former deputy chief minister and Rajya Sabha member Sushil Kumar Modi gave voice to this feeling with a series of tweets on Thursday, saying the loss of 10 sitting seats for the BJP-JD(U) alliance in the recent MLC polls coupled with the BJP’s defeat in Bochahan assembly bypolls to the RJD is a matter of deep introspection.

He said the drift of a section of extremely backward castes and upper castes away from the party in the bypoll was unexpected.

Modi was apparently referring to the erosion of the BJP’s votes among Nishad, a backward community of boatmen, and Bhumihars, a traditional support base of the party.

A few party leaders from the state, who did not want to be named, said that what cannot be ignored that three winning RJD candidates in the MLC polls were Bhumihars, igniting the prospect of the landed community warming up to the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led party after fiercely opposing it for decades.

While the NDA won 13 of total 24 seats, it suffered unexpected defeats in several seats.

A party leader cautioned that it would not be correct to extrapolate a general trend from the MLC elections, in which only elected members from local bodies to Parliament voted, and one bypoll, but added that they could serve as a helpful stock-taking exercise.

“Our leadership takes every election seriously. They will surely take corrective measures which they deem fit,” he said.

The Bochahan assembly bypoll was necessitated after its incumbent MLA, who hailed from the then BJP ally Vikassheel Insaan Party led by Mukesh Sahni, and the BJP decided to field its own candidate after cutting off ties with its partner following Sahni’s constant attack on the party.

Though Sahni’s nominee came third, he succeeded in cornering a big chunk of votes, including from the Nishad community which he claims to represent.

Nishads, who are in significant numbers in north Bihar, were seen to have mostly backed the BJP in previous polls.

Another BJP leader said that an obvious lack of synergy between the BJP and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) with leaders from both parties often taking swipe at each other have also affected the NDA’s prospects adversely.