BJP and Janata Dal (United) in war of words over NRC in Bihar

The Bharatiya Janata Party is using the NRC stick to beat its alliance partner Janata Dal (United) in Bihar where state Assembly elections are scheduled to be held about 13 months from now.

Ever since the release of National Register for Citizens list in Assam on August 31, saffron party leaders are calling for a similar exercise in Bihar, with Union Animal Husbandry Minister Giriraj Singh being the latest to join the chorus.

For the past 10 days, leaders of both the alliance partners have locked horns over the issue almost every day. Some of the saffron party hardliners have even accused the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) of harbouring ‘Bangladeshis’, especially in the north-eastern districts, commonly known as Seemanchal.

Though no part of Bihar shares a border with Bangladesh, the BJP has since its inception in 1980 been raising the issue of infiltrators in the state.

Incidentally, just when Giriraj Singh was on September 9 calling for NRC in Bihar, former Union minister and BJP leader Sanjay Paswan told mediapersons that the time had come for Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to shift to central politics and leave the post of CM for the BJP. This was seconded by his party colleague, Mahachandra Prasad Singh, earlier associated with the Congress and then the Janata Dal (United).

Though Nitish himself has been silent, as has been party national spokesman K C Tyagi, the Bihar CM’s trusted lieutenant and minister Shyam Rajak minced no words in denouncing the BJP. He even took pot shots at the RSS, with reference to the NRC in Assam. He also made it amply clear that there were no ‘infiltrators’ in Bihar.

JD(U) MP from Katihar, Dular Chand Goswami, who defeated Tariq Anwar in May, backed Rajak’s statement.

However, the BJP was quick to counter Goswami by stating that he was in the forefront of the agitation launched against ‘Bangladeshis’ by the saffron party in 1992, when he was in the BJP.

Katihar, along with Kishanganj, Purnea and Araria, are four districts of Seemanchal having a substantial Muslim population. The BJP and Janata Dal (United) have taken totally opposite stands on the issue of ‘infiltrators’. When the student wing of BJP, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, launched an agitation over the ‘Bangladeshis’ issue a decade back, they were lathi charged when they tried to gherao the Bihar Assembly. Upset BJP leaders at the time had alleged that such treatment was not meted out to them even during the 15 years of the Lalu-Rabri rule. They had asked ministers of their own party to raise the issue with the chief minister.

The BJP has always been critical of its alliance partner’s efforts to expand its base in Seemanchal. There were murmurs within the Sangh Parivar rank and file when former Union minister and RJD leader Mohammad Tasleemuddin and his son Sarfaraz Alam switched over to the Janata Dal (United).

Nitish, the BJP leaders allege, compelled the saffron party to give up its claim over Kishanganj Lok Sabha seats, once represented by its spokesman Syed Shahnawaz Husain. The latter was forced to contest from Bhagalpur in 2009 and 2014. In 2014, he lost, notwithstanding the so-called ‘Narendra Modi wave’.

However, in the last three Lok Sabha elections, it is the Congress which had defeated Janata Dal (United) in Kishanganj, which has over two-thirds Muslim votes.

Though the BJP government, both at the Centre and in Assam, is caught in a cleft stick over the NRC issue in Assam, the saffron party may certainly use it as an election issue in Bihar in 2020 and in Bengal in mid-2021. BJP leaders, including Giriraj Singh, have repeatedly been charging Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee with giving shelter to ‘Bangladeshis’ and Rohingyas of Myanmar.

The situation in Bihar is much different as the Janata Dal (United), unlike Trinamool Congress, is an alliance partner. Much depends on the political acumen of Nitish, as observers are of the view that the post-August 31 utterances of the BJP leaders has the backing of the saffron party’s top-brass.