Bihar Polls and the Grand Alliance: Discussion with Pavan Varma

Newsclick, in collaboration with The Citizen, discusses the prospects of ‘Grand Alliance’ in upcoming Bihar Assembly Polls with Pavan Varma, Member of Parliament and Spokesperson of Janta Dal (United). Mr. Varma believes that the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ of JD (U), RJD and Congress, as it is called, will win the Bihar Polls with full majority. The reason for it is the inclusive growth that Bihar has seen under Mr. Nitish Kumar, in opposition to the empty promises made by Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre. Mr. Varma also pointed out that the grand alliance led by Mr. Nitish Kumar has concrete programs and policies to offer to the people of Bihar who have been maligned by Prime Minister Modi when he made statements questioning the very DNA of Bihar. He believes that the Modi-led BJP is a ‘Jumla’ government which is expert in making tall promises but runs away from fulfilling them. On the question of SP leaving the grand alliance, Mr. Varma said that it was never part of the alliance. Mr. Varma also discussed that the Owaisi-led MIM would not impact the grand alliance as people of Bihar will vote for the social justice and economic growth - two markers which had been achieved under Mr. Nitish Kumar. He also pointed out that the grand alliance wants a state which is neutral to religious issues and in opposition to the polarization methods adopted by the BJP. It will oppose any sort of fundamentalist forces cutting across religious lines.

 Rough Transcript:

Seema Mustafa (SM): Intense campaigning for the Bihar assembly elections is on and it is widely been described as make or break elections. To get a perspective and assessment, we have Janata Dal (U) leader, MP, spokesperson, Pavan Varma with us. So what is your estimate and assessment about the elections in Bihar?

Pavan Varma (PV): The grand coalition, the Mahagathbandhan as it is called constituting, the JD(U), RJD and the Congress is well positioned to win and with a possibly a landslide victory.

SM: Various people who you hoped would be joining you like the Left that has gone in a separate alliance, like Mulayam Singh Yadav who was heading this grand alliance left you in the middle of it all. Isn't that going to impact on you?

PV: I don't believe so, the Left of course made a unilateral announcement that they would like to fight their election on their own. Their support would have been important but their fighting on their own and their influence on Bihar is limited. Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav was never a part of the grand coalition. He could have headed a possible merger of erstwhile parties of the Janata Parivar. But that merger never took place. So the grand coalition actually formed in Bihar, the SP was never a part. There was some move to give them a symbolic few seats which was not acceptable to so they were not with us as they were not as they were not supposed to be with us.

SM: Right from the beginning?

PV: Yes, indeed.

SM: So the Left is the really one that walked off?

PV: The Left did not walk off. They unilaterally decided that they would fight this elections on their own because as you are aware, the CPI(ML), CPI which have some form of support in Bihar and much less the CPI M and other smaller units of the Left. It is a free democratic country, people can make their choice.

SM: Yes, of course, but in an election where it is very crucial and which is seen as something which is going to impact the national politics after Bihar elections, then you would have been far more confident.

PV: Ideally, we would have been happy if all the forces which are seeking to put up a united front against the current BJP led by Narendra Modi were together. If however, some units or some forces are not, we have to assess what is their impact on the grand coalition. My own feeling is and I have great respect for the people of the Left but their actual influence is not beyond 10 or 12 seats, of some nature of influence out of 243 seats. So if they have made a unilateral decision without considering us, there is little we can do but I don't believe it significantly or even substantially in any way reduces essential, consolidated strength of the JD(U), RJD, Congress combine.

SM: Are there fissures between RJD and the congress we keep hearing from the RJD camp, Congress camp that Lalu Prasad did not want to attend the rally because Rahul Gandhi was there. First rally was also there was some tensions.

PV: To my mind, it is completely untrue to say that there are fissures in the Mahagathbandan. I say it because if you need a demonstration of it, you should have been present at the Gandhi Maidan on 30th August where we held on the biggest rallies that Bihar had ever seen. I was present there myself and not an inch of the historic Gandhi Maidan had space for anyone else to be there. The whole ground was packed and there were as many people outside as there were inside and what is significant is two things. Those who came for the rally were people who had not been brought there by money power. These were the people who were seeking social justice, the poor, the farmers, the labourers who had come on their own to show solidarity with the Mahagathbandan and the other interesting thing is their supporters did not come in three streams. The JD(U) workers coming at one stream, the RJD, the Congress. They were all moving together and the JD(U) worker was raising slogan in support of Lalu Prasadji and the RJD for Nitish Kumar and the Congress person was holding a JD(U) flag and the other two parties were saying Sonia Gandhi Zindabad so on and so forth. So they came together and there was very good interface with the alliance partners and this is also partly because we finished the business of setting up the coalition early. First, the BJP said we will never come together. Then we proved them wrong. Then they said we will never be able to divide seats. Then we proved them wrong. Then they said we will never be able to name a chief Minister, then we proved them wrong. So at the ground level, I believe there was very good coordination, between the three parties there are no fissures and we will put up a strong coalition.

SM: What about the top leadership. Is there a problem there let me ask you specifically between Laluand between Rahul Gandhi?

PV: I don't believe so and I don't have reason to believe so because if that was the case, how would the Congress joined the grand coalition? Why would Sonia Gandhi herself come for that massive rally. So I don't believe that is an issue at all. It is the media which is creating an issue and the BJP is fanning a distortion.

SM: What is the USP in the sense the campaign? Development of course, but then development you have Prime Minister Modi saying the same thing and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar saying the same thing. So what else is there? What is really working for you? The DNA card what was played by the Janata Dal United I don't know whether it really?

PV: There are four or five issues which we believe are the central pillars of our countered narrative to the BJP. One is of course is the good governance and the economic development and here we contrast it with what is our offer from BJP because in the 15 – 16 months the BJP has been in power in the centre, we have seen that the slogan of economic development, tremendous slogan. So much of what has been promised has not been implemented and so much else which is wrong is going on under the slogan of economic development which in any case is not happening. So good governance, economic development. But along with that social justice, inclusive growth so that the fruits of economic development reach the poorest of the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed and along with that it is our belief that all of this should be done in a milieu and ethos of religious and social harmony in conformity with the plural ethos of our country. Now, to that has been added a fifth plank which is that of the pride of Bihar because every time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come, he has insulted the people of Bihar and that is why Swabhiman or pride is also one of the factors. I am sure it is, every day lakhs of DNA samples are reaching the Prime Minister asking him to get it checked in case he has any doubts about the DNA of people of Bihar.

SM: But you know, BJP seems to be also working accordingly. It is looking at your vote banks, once that comes in other backwards, dalits and trying to create fissures by picking up people like former chief minister Manjhi etc. so that dent starts working, isn't that going to shift your base?

PV: Essentially, the BJP's electoral support base in shallows. It has let us say some strength among the upper caste but even that is not even fully consolidated. It has because of Mr. Paswan and Mr. Manjhi partial support of possibly some dalits and some Mahadalit. A large chunk of the voters of the extremely backwards caste where they may have a support of Kushwahas, so on and so for the. But even these are not guaranteed because as you may be aware none of the minor alliance partners are happy with the cynical seat distribution done by the BJP. As a matter of conscious strategy it has taken the bulk of the seats and postpone the seat allocation to the last minute. In the planned strategy that they would have not option but to accept. But, there are great tensions running in the NDA alliance and how much that would translate into votes, unhappy voters and supporters is to be seen. As contrary to this on our side, we have both the support for Mr. Nitish Kumar's good governance cutting across caste lines. We have bastions of strength. For instance, we have Lalu Prasadji as unquestioned leader of the Yadavs. Of course, we have people from all faiths supporting Mr. Nitish Kumar and in particular, I would say the 'backward' those castes which have been socially and economically deprived over centuries for whom Mr. Nitish Kumar has done a lot not in terms of good intentions but conscious policy, institutionalized planning. He is the person who has created the Mahadalit category to see that benefits actually reach the poorest of the poor. He had created the category of the extremely backward to ensure the same. So he has large areas of support base that is why even today after 9 years of chief minister, almost every poll shows that he is the first choice for all Bihar people in terms of chief ministership.

SM: So talking about the chiefministerhip, do you think it would have been a tougher fight if the BJP had named the candidate for chief ministership?

SM: No, there are views on it. It is an internal matter of BJP. But certainly a campaign which does not have a candidate for chief minister appears to people of Bihar to be odd and unless Mr. Narendra Modi who is their only face is planning to take additional charge of Bihar's chief minister, it is lacunae and it is something that is anomaly and the people of Bihar are saying that you can not have Bihar run by Gujarat. We respect the people of Gujarat, but all the posters and hoardings in Bihar have only Mr. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. People are asking who is your candidate. But BJP have a genuine problem. There are so many self anointed candidates for the chief ministership that there would be a literal revolt within the party if they were to declare it.

SM: So there is another big vote bank in fact, one of the consolidated vote bank which is that of the minorities for the Janata Dal United and there is that hesitation of speaking about it because of the fear of polarization which the BJP is trying to do. Now, how much of a dent is Owaisi going to make in that because he is shown in Maharashtra that he is a bit of garner a lot of votes.

PV: Not at all. My short answer to you is we are a democratic country. Any party as a write is recognized by the election commission to fight the elections. Mr. Owaisi says he will put up candidates in the Seemanchal region but he has never been to the Seemanchal for a very long time. He has come in at the last minute. I believe that our thinking is absolutely and crystal clear. It is that we are against fundamentals thinking of religious nature both among the Hindus and among the Muslims. Our vision for the Bihar's economic development is religion neutral. It includes Hindus and it includes Muslims. Our grand coalition has nothing to do with Mr. Owaisi.

SM: Well before the hypothetical question about the young people, it was shown in the last Lok Sabha elections that they have certain, that they were mesmirised to some extent by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and some report suggests that he still has that backing but across caste lines in Bihar. Is that true and if that is true then that could make a major difference to the final outcome?

PV: Actually what has happened is that there has been a major decline in the shine and gloss of Mr. Narendra Modi in terms of his appeal to most Indians but specially to the young. In the 15-16 months that he has been in power in the centre, there were extravagant promises he made about the growth of the economy, about job creation and other areas which have not fructified. He continues to make promises and there is no doubt that there was a section of the youth specially, those who have voted for first time last year who were in some extent under enthrall of Mr. Modi but that is very rapidly diminished because as against his generalised promises Mr. Nitish Kumar has promised concrete measures for the young. First, and these are his sections of his seven 'Nischays' The seven point that constitutes the blue print of the future which will be implemented in mission mode over and above what ever else has been planned for the state which will continue. Of these, the first thing is to provide anyone who goes to college, 10+2 onwards a four lakh credit card with a three percent interest of subvention from the state. The second is to provide the young between the ages of 20 and 25 who have acquired a degree and are looking for a job but don't have the means to sustain themselves on the interim or to pay for the fare to go on the interview. One thousand Rupees a month for upto nine months within a period of two years. Then he has said that all colleges and universities in Bihar will have free wifi connectivity. Fourthly, he set up a 500 crore venture capital fund where a highly subsidized interest, there will be loans available to those among the young who want to set up enterprises of their own. So cumulatively, these are very concrete things offered to the youth.

SM: But there is a USP of the person himself and Modi seen by the young people at least from the Lok Sabha elections or some of the elections subsequently as a very charismatic persons who seems to appeal to whatever aspirations that might have whether he does it on the ground or not will be immaterial.

PV: I don't agree that it is immaterial. I don't believe that the youth has cretence. I don't believe that they have a cranium. They are thinking people and if something is promised and nothing is delivered, I don't believe that they have their own faculties to draw their own inference and then you have to see what is on hand and what is being offered merely as a general promise what is called as a 'jumla', a promised made just for the sake of getting votes and on the other side, you have very concrete things and offer for the youth who in any case, even if they are young have seen the transformation of Bihar as part of growing up in Bihar. Take the question of law and order. It effects the middle class and youth. Today, anyone can can be out at any time in night in Patna and other cities without the fear of law and order. But the youth is concerned about other things. The youth is concerned about no new job creation or jobless growth. The youth is concerned and about their families skyrocketing prices. The youth is concerned in my view about the fact that the economy is going downhill. Exports have fallen for ten months in a row, industrial production is down, agricultural growth is down. There is hardly any parameter of economics where the performance of the government had been credit worthy. All of which effects both employment and optimism in the youth

SM: Earlier when I met you, you had spoken once about the money power by the BJP and the efforts to communalise and polarise the state. Money power is something quite formidable. Does that give them a decisive advantage?

PV: These are issues which we have brought to the notice of the election commission. The BJP as I have said in one of my quotes to our mind appears to be spending money like Ganga and flood. We expect the voter to be sensible.

SM: What about the polarization? That's more insidious.

PV: That's the card which BJP has used consistently along with the RSS. We saw in UP the Love Jehad campaign, the Ghar Wapasi campaign and we expect the BJP to use every trick in the book to win this election, to try and win this election by hook or by crook. That's why Mr. Amit Shah is mistakenly considered an electoral strategist. Not because he has a vision to win elections on free and fair basis but because he is able to use the Chanakyan idiom of Sam, Dam, Dand, Bhed in any possible way to win an election. We are aware of it and we will fight it.

SM: So that brings me to the hypothetical question that if you win, that's going to give a fillip to the opposition and it's going to result in a lot of regional equations. What happens if you loose and the BJP wins? How is that going to impact on nation.

PV: I don't believe that's a likelihood but even if that were to happen, I believe the grand coalition and in particular, my party's leader Mr. Nitish Kumar will remain a towering and relevant figure in the changing landscape of Indian politics and we are looking not only to this election but 2019 for a credible counter narrative which provides growth and development to this country but linked to social justice in an atmosphere which embraces the plural ethos of the nation. The kind of government that we have been seeing is it's direct anti-thesis.

SM: So the fight will go on and we are a democracy.

DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for Newsclick are typed from a recording of the program. Newsclick cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.