Patna: As condolences continue to pour in for Ram Vilas Paswan, the narrative in Bihar has already shifted to whether the death of the state’s tallest Dalit leader will have a bearing on the three-phase assembly elections set to begin on 28 October.
There is a consensus among politicians and experts that there will be a ‘sympathy wave’, but dissonance on how much of an impact it will have on the polls. This is all the more important as Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), now headed by son Chirag Paswan, has decided to go it solo and will contest on 143 of the 243 seats.
“Ram Vilas ji was undoubtedly one of the tallest political figures for over three decades. The grief over his demise is profound in Khagaria from where he hails,” BJP MLC Samrat Choudhary told ThePrint. “But it is for the people to decide (on voting for his party),” he added.
“There will be a sympathy wave. But it will be very limited and not enough to impact the outcome of the elections,” former Professor of Patna University, N.K. Choudhary, told ThePrint.
“It is the social base enjoyed by the leader that defines sympathy waves,” he added. “Ram Vilas Paswan was a big leader but his social base was confined to one section of Dalits. There may be a consolidation of votes among Paswans and a few other castes that viewed him well. But I do not foresee a pan-Bihar sympathy wave. Paswanji himself never had the backing of all sections of Biharis and his son has a reputation of being a Delhi resident who makes fly-by-night trips to Bihar.”
There are others, however, who hold the view that the Union minister’s death will have a significant impact on the elections.
“It is a mistake to view Paswan ji only as a Dalit leader. He practised the same politics that Lalu and Nitish do — the politics in favour of the downtrodden,” said former MLC Prem Kumar Mani who is currently with the RJD.
“But after he parted ways with Lalu in 1997, Paswanji began building ties with upper castes as well. So the impact will be much more profound,” he added.
His views are echoed by former MP and JD(U) leader Ranjan Prasad Yadav, who was one of Paswan’s close associates until 2009. “Paswanji had relations with all sections of the society even Muslims and that is why Muslims have voted for him,” he said.
A senior JD(U) leader, however, said Paswan’s death will have a limited effect on the elections. “It will be limited to his own community,” he said.
“He had no support in other sections. He also did not die an unnatural death. He was old and ailing.”
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Sympathy wave may hurt Nitish
If there is any sympathy wave, it may affect Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The acrimony between Nitish’s JD(U) and the LJP has been pronounced in these elections. The LJP, while still a part of the National Democratic Alliance, has decided to field candidates against the JD(U) and not the BJP.
This happened after a number of run-ins that Chirag Paswan has had with the chief minister.
But the bad blood goes back years.
In 2000, when Nitish headed a minority government that lasted 13 days, it was Paswan that the then JD(U)-BJP coalition had turned to for support. Paswan turned down the offer.
After that, Nitish has targeted Paswan by engineering deflections of MLAs and MLCs from LJP. He never allowed the LJP legislative wing in Bihar to grow.
In 2009, the chief minister sought to create a Mahadalit vote-bank by offering financial doles to 22 of the 23 Dalit sections in the state.
Nitish kumar created the Mahadait vote bank in which he clubbed 22 of the 23 dalit sections to give them financial doles. The only ones he left out were the Paswans.
After the 2000 incident, the LJP has never fought elections on the side of Nitish.
But the LJP itself has some work to do. In the 2015 assembly polls, it won a mere two seats of the 42 it contested in.
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