The political crisis in Bihar was always waiting to happen. When, in late 2015, bitter foes like Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad joined hands with the Congress to stop the march of a marauding BJP, opposition parties saw hope in the Mahagatbandhan formula, a potion that felled the mighty Narendra Modi-Amit Shah combine. But in July 2017, with charges of financial wrongdoing against Tejaswi Yadav, the deputy chief minister and Lalu’s son, Bihar’s Grand Alliance teeters on the edge. The Rashtriya Janata Dal, the larger partner in the Grand Alliance, appears vexed with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s reluctance to defend his deputy. Also Nitish’s support for several policies of the Prime Minister haven’t really inspired confidence among his allies. There are reports of a rift within Nitish’s JD(U), with a section of the party favourably disposed to returning to the BJP-led NDA.

These cracks that now seem to rip through the Mahagatbandhan’s foundations have always been there. The alliance’s genesis was of rank opportunism, driven by a desperation to stay politically relevant. The BJP, the single largest party with 24.4 per cent vote share, stood six percentage points ahead of the RJD’s 18.4 per cent. Then and today, when the BJP looks a well-oiled mean machine ready to extend its reach beyond the cow-belt States, the Opposition appears unimaginative. Is it any wonder then, that Nitish pointed to the Opposition’s poverty of ideas, its “reactive narrative”?

In reality, Bihar is a microcosm of all that is wrong with the Opposition. It shows no opposition party possesses the courage to build from the bottom up, and stand up to a menacing BJP. The domination of a country’s polity by a single political party is hardly good news for any democracy. The Congress in particular, seems to have abandoned the millions with its langour, letting the ruling party set a regressive agenda and discourse, when agrarian distress and jobless growth are real issues worth taking up.

Monu Rajan Chief Sub Editor

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