Hope over Pessimism

 

All the political outfits in opposition rode on the self proclaimed wave of pessimism against the sitting Nitish Kumar led NDA government in Bihar, however, to find out that they have only failed to translate their tall claims into ground reality.

In an absolute antithesis of nearly all the opinion polls, the results came in favour of the NDA in BIhar. This infused a state of shock amongst all those who thought that false propaganda can ever triumph over ground work done for the welfare of the citizens. Bihar was a litmus test as it was first to go for poll post Covid 19.

Barack Obama, former president of the United States of America, while describing the Congress politician Rahul Gandhi wrote in his memoir that, “He (Rahul Gandhi) was eager to impress but lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master the subject.” In fact Obama depicted Rahul Gandhi in very sofisticated way which is perfectly in line with what people in India know of him.

Same could very well be related to the case in Bihar with the Tejaswi led Mahagathbandhan, that these outfits were eager to impress voters but sincerely lacked the compassion to serve the people of this nation, in this case Bihar. Though in the entire process, the only leader from the opposition parties which could percolate to the minds of the people to a certain extent was Tejaswi Yadav, his success can be attributed to four reasons. He got RJD in succession, age on his side,party spoiler by Chirag Paswan and anti incumbency against sitting CM for 15 years in a row. However, the mandate went for the NDA government led by Nitish Kumar.

Bihar happened to be an election tussle which exhibited the true ethical essence of the coalition politics where Nitish Kumar is reportedly set to take oath as the chief Minister of Bihar for the fourth time despite the fact that his party has suffered significant political dent in the poll results.

The voters of Bihar had to choose between two options where on one hand there were past precedents of hooliganism and Gunda raj by the RJD led government not to forget Lalu Prasad Yadavs current location, and on the other hand, there was Nitish Kumar government who have been vocal on development issues, supported and endorsed by none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. While Tejaswi Yadav certainly managed to make his mark by becoming the single largest party.

Nationalist Congress Party supremo Sharad Pawar in one of his recent media engagements expressed his opinion of Tejaswi Yadav claiming that a lot could be learnt from him. However, he must introspect why couldn’t his party achieve such success ever in past when persons like Mamata, Akhilesh , Mayawati, Jaganmohan, Chandrababu could form the government at their own. Only experience doesn’t help ,what is more required, is credibility ! The fact of the matter is that the palpability of this high tally of seats is unlikely for the NCP chief to ever achieve. Pawar has been in the active politics of Maharashtra for almost four decades now. What has not been done in the last forty years, it is not going to happen over a fortnight after the results of one state assembly election.

Bihar elections saw various political parties directly or indirectly coming together against the leadership of Nitish Kumar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, much contrary to everyone’s interpretations, NDA rose to political pinnacle in Bihar as the people of the state stood firmly by the vision and track record of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar.

One such example of dramatic failure is of ShivSena. The party went on to contest 22 assembly seats in Bihar hoping to lead the wagon of opposition parties in the national politics, however, it just recorded nothing but a disastrous failure. Out of the 22 seats contested, deposits of 21 of the seats fought by the Shiv Sena were sealed. That is exactly how badly the party was compelled to bite the dust with absolute humiliation. Congress, their ally in Maharashtra government , refused to join hands with shivsena in Bihar.

Very soon after the results, many came to the conclusion that Tejaswi could be the probable face for the anti-Modi alliance. However, while commenting so, one must not forget his roots and basis of politics. Having said so, it will still be premature to comment on whether Tejaswi Yadav could position himself as one of the emerging leaders which could head all the opposition parties, unless he walks on the path of YS Jaganmohan Reddy. For that he will have to prove his mettle in next five years while in opposition. The moment someone comes up to some expectations all the aspirants like Mamata, Akhilesh, Mayawati and for that matter even Sharad Pawar train their guns on such upcoming leader.

Nevertheless, the people of Bihar through their mandate have ensured that the state does not get grappeled by negativity and corruption of those in the past. As far the NDA is concerned, BJP despite getting more tally than that of the JDU continues to be on its commitment that Nitish Kumar will be the chief minister of Bihar. While BJP has stood by its words, some political stooges have immediately plunged into the issue giving illogical statements and credits to the Shiv Sena for this action of the BJP. In Maharashtra , in many public rallies , Prime Minister Narendra Modi made it amply clear in presence of Udhav Thackrey that Devendra Fadnavis would be the CM to which Shivsena never objected to.

However, the truth of the matter is that in Maharashtra, Shivsena retrospectively discovered the new clauses of the alliance equations post the poll results. As for in Maharashtra sharing the office of Chief Minister of the state was never on cards. Hence, ShivSena leaders’ false claims stand rejected. Besides, Shiv Sena by joining hands with their principal opposition for years have created a political grave for themselves. Not only Shiv Sena but all the Non NDA parties to a large extent will now be rejected by the voters as the priorities of their alliances and equations are now wide open in the public domain.

While BJP led NDA continues to seek votes on the name of development and reforms beneficial for the entire nation, all the non NDA parties continue to seek votes raising their opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, these outfits are oblivion to the fact that it was the very same Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has been instrumental in initiating many welfare schemes like PM Awas Yojana, Ujwala Yojana, Ayushman Bharat, PM Kisan Sanman Nidhi and many more, the benefits of which are directly availed by the same voters. These sentiments of voters were evident in the Bihar poll results as well. While opposition parties continue their baseless and unproven allegations on the Modi government, the NDA continues to garner the trust of the voters by working for them.

On one hand where there is a ray of hope, on other there are shades of pessimism while in the state of Bihar, the voters have clearly chosen hope over pessimism.

Vishwas Pathak

BJP Media Head – Maharashtra