The coming together of Nistish-Lalu combine can be another spoiler for Bharatiya Janata Party after the Delhi debacle when Arvind Kejriwal broke the party’s winning spree. BJP is little wary of alliance. NDA had won 31 of Bihar’s 40 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and 180 of the total 243 assembly seats. BJP needs to win this battle to break the Delhi debacle. BJP will try to woo former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi to garner Dalit votes. The second innings of Nitish Kumar is being projected as a show of “secular” strength. With Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, his father and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and former Prime Minister H. D Deve Gowda present at the oath taking ceremony once again shows that the dream of third front is still not dead. BJP was reconciled to the numerical superiority of the rival camp, but was banking on Manjhi to stage a high-voltage performance on the floor of the Assembly following the examples of Vajpayee and Deve Gowda, the two former PMs who turned trust votes into opportunities to craft planks and hurt their opponents. But if the next face-off, set for October-November when state polls are due, give Nitish an opportunity to avenge his humiliation, the BJP too has high stakes riding on it. After the Delhi debacle, Bihar elections can be an opportunity for the saffron party to regain the political momentum. Conversely, another defeat will reinforce the perception that the NaMo wave, which propelled BJP to a majority at the Centre has ebbed. Kumar understands that a confrontationist attitude with the Centre will go against him, given the anti-incumbency factor that is likely to weigh heavily against him in an election year. “He can’t afford to blame Modi for not cooperating. The Bihar CM’s changed political posturing towards Modi is also seen as a tactical move to regain his image of ‘Vikas Purush’ who is ready to build bridges with anyone for Bihar’s sake.
