After Delhi debacle, BJP to not announce CM candidate in Bihar
Senior leaders say the party will contest the election under Narendra Modi's leadership to avoid factionalism
New Delhi: The humiliating loss in the Delhi assembly election has triggered a change of electoral strategy in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Launching its campaign for the upcoming Bihar assembly polls, the party said the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) it leads at the centre will not field a chief ministerial candidate.
The BJP ran a high-profile campaign in February’s Delhi elections, projecting former police officer Kiran Bedi as its chief ministerial candidate, but won only three of the 70 seats in the assembly.
Senior leaders of the party said the Bihar election will be fought under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi without a chief ministerial candidate being named. The move, they said, will ensure that all senior leaders are united while fighting the election and that there is no factionalism in the Bihar unit of the party.
BJP president Amit Shah launched the party’s election campaign in Patna on Tuesday.
“The party has decided that team BJP will contest the polls and there will be no chief ministerial candidate in Bihar. The BJP has a galaxy of senior leaders from Bihar—some of them are ministers in the government—so there is a conscious decision not to have a chief ministerial candidate. The BJP will ask the people to vote on the basis of the work done by the central government and what the party wants to achieve for Bihar,” said a senior BJP leader who is involved in strategy building.
The BJP chose to launch its campaign in Bihar on Ambedkar Jayanti, the birth anniversary of Dalit leader B.R. Ambedkar. The party has been eyeing the votes of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes to win the elections.
The BJP had earlier contested state elections without a chief ministerial candidate. It fought elections in Jharkhand, Haryana, Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir without naming a chief ministerial candidate. It has formed governments in Haryana and Jharkhand on its own and as part of alliances in Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir.
Delhi was the only election in which it named a chief ministerial candidate but the choice did not go down well with many party members. BJP leaders argue that naming a candidate in Bihar could create similar divisions in the state.
“It’s a strategic decision not to name a chief ministerial candidate. There cannot be a single rule to announce or not announce a chief ministerial candidate in an election. The election strategy differs from state to state,” the BJP leader added.
Although the BJP is in alliance with two smaller regional parties, Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party and Upendra Khushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, it is after a gap of nearly two decades that the party will be contesting a majority of the assembly seats on its own. The BJP has not contested all the assembly seats in Bihar after it forged an alliance with Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), earlier known as the Samata Party, in 1996.
The BJP faces a tough fight in Bihar after chief minister Nitish Kumar-led JD(U)and Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal decided to merge before the polls. The new party is likely to get support from the Congress in the election.
Political analysts say the Bihar election has become a litmus test for Modi because the BJP will be fighting against the formidable duo of Kumar and Prasad.
“The Bihar unit of BJP is riddled with factionalism and it is a smart move not to announce a chief ministerial candidate because it will further create internal problems for the BJP. The party members will end up fighting with each other rather than contest elections. Since Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad are together, the BJP needs to keep its house in order to win this election,” said Shashi Sharma, head of political science at Patna University.
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First Published:16 Apr 2015, 12:35 AM IST
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