RJD-LJP alliance not to gain from NDA rift

PATNA: Opposition leaders in Bihar, especially those of the RJD-LJP combine, are a confused lot with the ongoing spar between ruling JD(U) and BJP positioning chief minister Nitish Kumar in an enviable heads-I-win, tails-you-lose situation.
The RJD and LJP appear to be giving conflicting messages, one dubbing the episode as a shadow boxing while the other daring the ruling allies to part ways and fight the election on their own.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad has been repeatedly taking jibes at the BJP leaders for being `hounded out of a dinner’ by Nitish. “Nitish’s was an indecent behaviour,” Lalu said and added Nitish was overreacting because his links with Gujarat CM Narendra Modi have been exposed.
Lalu also dared Nitish to prove his secular credentials by snapping ties with the BJP and even asked the BJP to withdraw support to the Nitish government to avenge the humiliation Nitish inflicted on them by cancelling the dinner he was to host for them.
On the other hand, LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan described the entire episode as a drama and asked Nitish and BJP to snap ties. Nitish’s friend-turned-foe and rebel JD(U) MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lalan also termed Nitish’s snub to the BJP leaders as a drama aimed at misleading people on the eve of the assembly polls.
Observers felt Nitish-baiters are betraying a sense of panic. “The fact remains that Lalu Prasad became a hero among Muslims just because he arrested LK Advani and halted his `rath yatra’ in 1990. And Nitish has also taken on the man the Muslims hate the most today,” admitted a senior RJD leader.
What’s at stake is the votes of Bihar’s 16% Muslims who constituted a strong chunk of the Congress’ traditional vote-bank till the 1989 riots in Bhagalpur when the party was in power in the state. The community switched its loyalty to Lalu after he arrested Advani, and Lalu won elections for the next 15 years with his magic MY (Muslim-Yadav) formula.
However, Lalu’s support base among Muslims waned in the 2005 polls with LJP parting ways with him and wooing a section of Muslims. In the last Lok Sabha polls, post-poll surveys indicated around 12% of the Muslim votes went for the JD(U) despite its alliance with the BJP. Obviously, Nitish’s concerted efforts to make a dent in Lalu’s Muslim vote-bank by initiating a number of welfare measures for them paid dividends.
Opposition leaders concede privately that if Nitish does decide to sever ties with the BJP, Muslim voters would polarise in favour of the JD(U), leaving other claimants of the minorities’ votes high and dry.