BJP reorients campaign narrative away from three 'Cs' in Bihar

As BJP seeks to reorient the political narrative of Bihar polls to the 'D' of development, taking away the focus from the three 'Cs' of Caste, Corona, and Continuity, BJP chief JP Nadda in an election rally in Gaya asked people to secure the leadership of Bihar with Nitish Kumar as they have done that of Centre with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, enlisting the development initiatives in the state in last six years of Modi-rule.

Pushing ahead with double engine development theme for the poll, Nadda said that while Bihar got just four medical colleges in 70 years prior to 2014 when Modi came to Centre, it already got 14 more medical colleges and the work was on for 11 more such colleges--all this in just six years of Modi's rule.

Also Read | Secure the leadership of Bihar with Nitish Kumar: JP Nadda

"The leadership of India is secured in the hands of PM Narendra Modi and it's important that the leadership of Bihar is secured with Nitish Kumar. We together have to ensure to bring the NDA government in the state," Nadda said, seeking to highlight a difference "between Bihar of today and Bihar of past from the prism of development."

Accusing Congress of doing "politics of caste" in the state earlier, the BJP chief said that Modi and Nitish had "changed the political culture of Bihar". "Narendra Modi Ji has begun the culture of going to people on the basis of the report card of works done by the government," said Nadda as the state is set to witness a very complex election in which caste dynamics could play a very key role.

Nitish Kumar has been a caste neutral identity, which was considered a strength as this was the reason for his support base that constituted of a rainbow of small castes belonging to Extremely Backward Classes and Mahadalits, while his own community Kurmi constitutes of just 3 to 4 per cent of the population in Bihar. The alliance with BJP and some strong upper caste leaders fetched him additional upper caste votes.

There is a feeling that Nitish Kumar, who earlier steered the alliance to power on his own may find it difficult to repeat his social coalition magic this time and also is on the defensive on the coronavirus issue on which all Opposition parties have tried to put the state government on the mat.

Also Read | Bihar Assembly Elections: Fighting ‘enemy within’, Nitish Kumar may now like Congress to win more seats

BJP feels that if the narrative goes around caste, then it may have an uphill task consolidating votes of the conflicting communities at the constituency level together. Hence it has chosen to center primarily around development plank supported by soft Hindutva, socialist politics contradictions, and farmer welfare theme.

On the last day, Nadda hailed the Prime Minister for starting 'Swamitva Yojana' to give land ownership to villagers and farmers of the country.

Nadda visited the famous Hanuman temple in Patna in full media glare and carried out worship of the deity. He also visited J P Niwas, the house of anti-Emergency poster boy Jay Prakash Narayan and garlanded his statue.

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Later he took potshots at Lalu Prasads' RJD for aligning with Congress saying, "When I used to study in college, the JP movement was prevalent in the entire country and the starting point of that movement was the residence of Shri JP Narayan. Loknayak JP shook the bases of the corrupt Congress governments. Here people who became leaders of Janata Party with the blessing of JP and became Chief Ministers thrice are embracing the Congress now."

Nadda also tried to counter the criticism of the handling of Corona insisting that Nitish Kumar took care of people during Covid-19 crisis and that financial assistance was also provided by his government to those outside Bihar.