The twin issues of reading down of the Constitution’s Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) and laying the foundation stone for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, which have topped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic (NDA) government’s list of achievements, are dominating the election narrative in Bihar, whose two more phases will be held on Tuesday (November 3) and Saturday (November 7).
The BJP, in alliance with the Janata Dal (United), is hoping to clinch power for one more five-year term.
Separated by a distance of over 1,300 kilometres, the BJP has found a way to link J&K to Bihar, bringing up the valour of soldiers, who serve in the Union Territory (UT) that was formed on October 31, 2019 following the scrapping of Article 370 of the Constitution.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Pakistani federal minister and lawmaker Fawad Chaudhry’s claims that Islamabad had hit India on its own soil by carrying out the Pulwama attack in February 2019 was a revelation that has “taken masks off” the faces of those in India, who never cared for the “sons of Bihar”.
“…Recently our neighbour accepted complicity in Pulwama attack. It exposed those who doubted valour of sons of Bihar,” the PM said in his speech at Chhapra, the headquarters of Saran district.
In his first election rally in Bihar on October 23, the PM had deemed the demand for restoration of Article 370 as an insult to the soldiers from Bihar who fought in eastern Ladakh’s Galwan Valley.
Ladakh, a separate UT, was part of the erstwhile state of J&K.
Earlier the issues were deftly woven into speeches made by BJP president JP Nadda and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who belongs to Bihar, and several party leaders, who chose to remind the voters of how the party had kept its promise vis-à-vis the temple and removal of J&K’s special status.
Though the opposition continues to attack the NDA government for its failure to address issues of development in the state, opportunities for employment and the government’s response to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic; the BJP has made a concerted effort to benefit from the buoyant mood over the Ram temple issue and wants to elicit support by tapping on the sentiment that soldiers fighting in J&K and Ladakh evoke.
It has at the same time limited its reference to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019 and the proposed National Citizens’ Register (NRC) and using them only to attack the opposition for creating “misinformation” about these contentious issues.
The blame for the protests that erupted across the country against the CAA, 2019 that fast tracks citizenship for persecuted minorities from south Asia and the proposed NRC has been pinned on the opposition for trying to “create a divide” and stoking fear that the government will take away the rights of the minorities.
The opposition said the references to the Ram temple and J&K are attempts by the BJP to coalesce the Hindu vote and divert attention from local issues.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said, “These are used to divert attention from the real issues in a state, where it has been in power for 15 years and is answerable on many fronts and is up against the wall.”
However, the BJP maintained that it was well within in rights to mention the promises that it has kept. “The BJP fights election on the issues of nationalism, development, ideology and its vision for the future. Canvassing is done in a holistic manner covering our commitment to our ideology and with a futuristic point of view,” said Bhupender Yadav, BJP’s national general secretary and in-charge of Bihar.
Political commentator Ajay Kumar Jha said the PM and the party have reasons to bring up the issues since they have delivered on both counts. About the references made to J&K in particular, Jha said, “Bihar is a state within India. Anything that affects the country can determine action in Bihar as well. Besides even a small percentage can swing an election so while caste issues are surging, the issue of jobs has caught the fancy and Muslims, who make up for about 17% of the population in the state, are not happy with the BJP’s nationalistic policies, the party will raise issues that will change the course of the election.”
This is not the first time that the party has chosen to contest local polls on the plank of national issues. It had relied on the Ram temple issue and the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution during Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand assembly polls last year.
The BJP formed government in Haryana with the help of Jannayak Janta Party (JJP).
The party lost the election in Jharkhand.
In Maharashtra, it failed to reach a power-sharing agreement with one of its oldest allies, the Shiv Sena, and reduced to playing the role of opposition.
The BJP’s defeat in Jharkhand, where it had won 11 of the 14 seats in the Lok Sabha elections just six months ago last year, was perceived as an indication that local issues trump national concerns at the state level.
“Local issues are no longer separate from larger national issues. People are aware that a decisive government is needed at the Centre as well as the state. If the BJP is raising the issue of Kashmir, it is with a purpose to tell the families of the soldiers from Bihar that the sacrifice of their sons and daughters are not going in vain and that the government is committed to securing the borders as it is about providing jobs,” said a BJP functionary.
