[Quite interestingly, in the BJP hoarding that has recently come up in Patna, referred to in the report at sl no. I below, neither of the two BJP leaders whose names have been floated of late as the possible CM candidates (ref.: <http://www.ndtv.com/bihar/prem-kumar-to-be-chief-minister-if-nda-wins-says-bjps-shahnawaz-hussain-1231069> and <http://www.thehindu.com/elections/bihar2015/bihar-assembly-elections-2015-modis-man-may-emergeas-ndas-chief-ministerial-candidate/article7758317.ece>) figures. One wonders whether it's indicative of confusion in the party or a deliberate attempt to cause confusion. But voters are not too likely to be fooled.]
I/III. http://www.thehindu.com/elections/bihar2015/bihar-assembly-elections-2015-wary-bjp-changes-tack-in-bihar/article7762303.ece Updated: October 15, 2015 02:39 IST Wary BJP changes tack in Bihar AMARNATH TEWARY A BJP hoarding that sprang up in Patna on Wednesday. Photo: Ranjeet Kumar Modi’s pictures no longer seen on party's campaign hoardings. With no clear trend emerging from the first phase of the Bihar Assembly election held for 49 seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party has apparently changed its campaign tack to be in the reckoning in the next four phases. The BJP had so far been banking on its star campaigner Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charisma while splashing the city and highways across the State with his huge cut-outs and posters. Now, for the first time, the facts and faces on the posters and hoardings have changed. ***On the busy Dak Bunglow thoroughfare, the centre of the city, a new billboard has sprung up overnight displaying faces of senior State BJP leaders like Sushil Modi, C.P. Thakur, Ashwani Choubey and Hukumdeo Narayan Yadav — all belonging to different castes. Surprisingly, the pictures of both the star campaigners of the party — Mr. Modi and party president Amit Shah — are missing.*** [Emphasis added.] Even the captions and contours of the billboard have changed. Earlier, it was “Abki Baar, Modi Sarkar (this time Modi government)”; then came the “Badaliye Sarkar, Badaliye Bihar (change the government, change Bihar) with PM Modi and Mr. Shah looking from a corner. But, now, the billboard says, “Vikas ki hogi tej rafter, Jab kendra-rajya mein ek sarkar (development will take pace when the same government is in power at the Centre and in the State). Promises galore The billboard also promises to provide loan on zero per cent interest for agriculture, a colour TV for every Dalit and Mahadalit family, five decimal land each to the homeless and a pair of dhoti-saree to every poor family. Even the local newspapers have some fresh BJP advertisements with pictures of even the alliance partner leaders like Ram Vilas Paswan of Lok Janshakti Party, Upendra Kushwaha of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party and Jitan Ram Manjhi of Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) on them. With the caption “Bhajapa ka saath, Sabka Vikas (with BJP, development of all), a vernacular newspaper on Wednesday, surprisingly, carried a front-page BJP advertisement without pictures of any party leader. It only mentioned 11 promises — from free scooters to 5,000 talented girl students to Rs. one lakh to those unemployed for opening a small shop. Poll observers, however, see it in a different perspective. “It’s not off-the-cuff but a well thought out strategy after the first phase poll. The overexposure of their star campaigner — Mr. Narendra Modi — has not gone down well with the voters so the party has been forced to change tack,” S.N. Sinha, a poll observer, told The Hindu. Party insiders too said senior party leaders were not very happy with the trend of the first phase. Allies a worried lot Though senior leaders of the LJP, HAM(S) and RLSP have maintained silence over the apparent failure of the BJP’s campaign in the first phase, second-rung leaders have started voicing their apprehensions, ‘off the record.’ However, leaders from both camps — the BJP-led NDA and the Nitish-Lalu-led ‘grand alliance’ have claimed that they would get not less than 34-36 seats in the first phase, but according to poll observers, the battle has become even “more tough and unpredictable.” Unconfirmed sources, meanwhile, told The Hindu that after “getting not-so-encouraging feedback,” the Prime Minister too could make changes in his Bihar programme. He is all set to address close to 40 poll meetings in the State in the next 12 days. II/III. http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/paint-it-black/surprisingly-durable-alliance-nitish-kumar-and-lalu-prasad-are-doing-well-at-both-chemistry-and-arithmetic/ Surprisingly durable alliance: Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad are doing well at both chemistry and arithmetic October 15, 2015, 12:02 AM IST Arati R Jerath in Paint it Black | Edit Page, India | TOI Trust Bihar to defy gravity. When arch enemies Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad joined forces and roped in Congress as an also-ran to stop the Modi juggernaut from rolling into Patna, few expected their ramshackle Grand Alliance to hold. Political rivals and pundits alike predicted an early demise. When that didn’t happen, they insisted that the combo wouldn’t work on the ground. Lalu’s Yadav votes will never transfer to the man who exiled the community to political wilderness for a decade, they said. Nor, they added, would Nitish’s EBC and mahadalit voters, who had drifted in significant numbers to BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, reconcile to the prospect of yesterday once more in jungle raj. Surprisingly, a different narrative is unfolding in village after dusty village north and south of Patna. Bihar’s politically savvy voters have turned conventional wisdom on its head to put the Grand Alliance firmly in the race and nosing ahead, if the chatter in rural chowks is any indication. Three factors have given the Grand Alliance an unforeseen bounce. One, Lalu has managed to consolidate his Yadav vote and pave the way for largescale transfer to the Alliance. In fact, BJP’s jungle raj campaign has only sharpened the forward-Yadav divide and is working in Lalu’s favour to get his caste solidly behind him. Young and old alike, especially in rural areas, see it as pure forward caste propaganda against the community. It is a measure of the Yadavs’ desperation to regain their lost influence that they are prepared for a backdoor entry to power through Nitish who they had come to resent for marginalising them. Of course the Muslim-Yadav arithmetic becomes a formidable advantage (rough estimates place it at around 30%) when one plus one equals two. And now the chemistry. This is an entirely unexpected development in the face of the still prevalent goodwill for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Even Grand Alliance supporters say that Modi is a popular figure in Bihar despite occasional grumbles about rising prices and unfulfilled promises. Yet, the figure that looms benignly in Bihar’s collective consciousness is Nitish. It is remarkable that he suffers virtually no anti-incumbency backlash even after nine years in the saddle — Jitan Ram Manjhi was chief minister for a year when Nitish quit after the JD(U) got hammered in the Lok Sabha polls. ‘Bahut kaam kiye hain’ (He has done a lot), is a common refrain, even among those who otherwise intend to vote for BJP. Nitish has taken a leaf out of Modi’s election notebook with the help of the prime minister’s former strategist, Prashant Kishor, to build on his personal image and add chemistry to Lalu’s arithmetic. If Narendra Modi turned the 2014 parliamentary polls into a presidential contest with himself as the main issue, Nitish has managed to do something similar in Bihar for the assembly polls. The joke in Patna’s drawing rooms is that Nitish has done a Modi on Modi! As the campaign progresses, it is evident that the issue increasingly confronting voters is whether they want Nitish as chief minister or not. And the answer, both in anecdotal findings and in pre-poll opinion surveys, is a resounding Yes. The third factor flows from this. The importance of being Nitish becomes all the more relevant because this is after all, an assembly election, not a parliamentary poll. Voters are very clear about the difference, with illiterate rural folk displaying the same astuteness as those in urban areas. ‘Yeh gharelu chunav hai. Hum CM ko chun rahe hain, PM ko nahin’ (This is a domestic election. We are choosing a CM, not a PM). The words are repeated in different ways in different areas, buttressing a trend that has become visible across the country with the rise of regional parties. Nitish is banking on this to win back the EBC groups and mahadalits he lost to BJP last year. It is interesting that the main issue for these groups is not caste but development. While this should give BJP an edge with Modi’s strong pitch in his rallies, voters seem to be joining the dots closer to home and giving Nitish the credit for the metal road running through their village, the new schoolhouse that’s been built, the restoration of law and order, etc. The Modi model of development is a mirage. Nitish’s is a three dimensional presentation on the ground. EBCs and mahadalits comprise a little over 30% of Bihar’s population. Consequently, they are an important segment that both Modi and Nitish are wooing aggressively with their respective development agendas. Because they feel empowered today to vote independently, irrespective of pressures from more dominant castes, they will decide the outcome of Mandate 2015. But unlike the forwards and Yadavs, these groups do not vote as a monolith and are scattered too far and wide for credible mapping of voting preferences. The complex caste calculus that famously decides an election in Bihar makes the 2015 assembly poll difficult to call, particularly since both sides are flaunting formidable numbers through cleverly crafted social alliances. However, increasingly, elections are being driven by personalities rather than issues or ideologies. Can the Grand Alliance hope to pull it off then with Nitish as its face, given that the other side has not announced a chief ministerial candidate? We’ll know on November 8 when the votes are counted. III. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/bihar-polls-2015-nitish-kumar-makes-it-pm-modi-vs-cm-nitish-battle-challenges-narendra-modi-to-debate-on-development/articleshow/49362995.cms Bihar Polls 2015: Nitish Kumar makes it ‘PM Modi Vs CM Nitish’ battle; challenges Narendra Modi to debate on development By Sanjay Kumar Singh, ET Bureau | 15 Oct, 2015, 06.50AM IST DINARA (ROHTAS): Three hours after RJD chief Lalu Prasad's departure from Baldeo High School ground at Dinara on NH-30 in Rohtas district on Wednesday, another helicopter carrying chief minister Nitish Kumar landed there. The two main campaigners of the Bihar Grand Alliance drew an impressive crowd of almost equal size, but they talked about completely different things even as both countered Prime Minister Narendra Modi in their own way. While Prasad's speech apparently aimed to consolidate the OBC votes, Kumar stuck to his development agenda. It was the last day of campaigning for the second phase of elections. Prasad had to cover nine assembly seats on the day. Hence he delivered short speeches that touched every issue he wanted to highlight, right from reservation policy to his favourite social justice for poor people. Kumar addressed five meetings — seeking votes for three JD(U) candidates in Bhabhua, Karahgar and Dinara in Rohtas district, one Congress candidate in Bhabhua constituency of Kaimur district, and one RJD candidate in Gaya's Belaganj seat. Kumar left no opportunity to make it as 'PM Modi vs CM Nitish' in his speeches by challenging Modi to debate with him on development model. He talked about 'Bihari vs bahri (outsider)', 'Gujarat vs Bihar development models', 'Nitish's modern village vs Modi's smart cities', and 'construction of government buildings in Bihar's rural areas vs big buildings owned by individuals in Gujarat's villages'. Kumar began his speeches saying, "Main to sirf aapke durbar mein haaziri darz karane aaya hun. Meri haazri kabul kijiye (I am here only to register my presence at your durbar. Please accept my presence)," to thunderous applause from the crowd at almost every meeting. Then the chief minister would shift focus to his seven-point development agenda. "I have 10 years of experience and I realise development should continue in Bihar," he said, apparently reminding voters about his image as 'Sushasan Babu'. He highlighted his priorities such as construction of buildings for schools and hospitals, besides roads. He reminded voters of his contribution to establish rule of law, and his government's uniform and bicycle schemes for school students. "I never claimed that Bihar is a developed state. That is why I demand special status for Bihar," he said. Then he told voters that BJP has declared Gujarat as a developed state. "Gujarat is victim of malnutrition," he claimed. The Bihar chief minister even made a unique claim that his feat of bringing electricity to the villages played a key part in Modiled NDA's sweep in the Lok [Sbha poll]. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
