Bihar: Ruling JD-U Bowing Before Ally BJP’s Agenda to Target Muslims?

Patna: Is Bihar’s ruling JD-U (Janata Dal- United) bowing before its ally BJP’s agenda to target Muslims, contrary to its past stand on different issues. This issue is being discussed in the state now.

After strongly supporting the Waqf (Amendment) Bill in Parliament, senior JD-U leader and Union Minister Lalan Singh publicly claimed that Muslims do not vote for JD-U.

“Muslims pahle bhi JD-U ko vote nahi dete thhe, aur na hi ab dete hai,” said Singh, former JD-U president, considered close to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, at a party workers’ meeting in Muzaffarpur.

Singh further stated that Nitish Kumar knows who vote for him and who don’t vote him. Muslims hardly vote for JD-U. But the Nitish Kumar-led government has been doing work for the minority community, he added.

Singh’s remark sounds contrary to the ground reality because a sizeable section of Muslims have been supporting Nitish Kumar and voting for JD-U ignoring its long association with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Even in recently concluded Assembly bypoll in Belaganj seat in Gaya district that was wrested by JD-U from opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal after 34 years, JD-U got a chunk of votes from Muslims despite RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s campaign appeal seeking support for his party only, amid the presence of two other Muslim candidates, one belonging to Jan Suraj Party of Prashant Kishor and Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM.

In the past, too,  local Hindi dailies reported that Muslims have openly supported Nitish Kumar, his party JD-U and voted for it in the Lok Sabha as well as in Assembly polls.

Singh’s remark is not an isolated incident, as Nitish Kumar himself has repeatedly tried to touch the feet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at public functions, raising many eyebrows in political circles here.

The Chief Minister also tried to convince the top BJP leadership including, Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda at one after another official function in Bihar in recent months that he would not dump the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and it was a mistake to join hands with RJD in the past.

JD-U leaders have been saying that the NDA will contest the 2025 Bihar Assembly polls under the leadership of Nitish Kumar and he will be their Chief Ministerial face.

It is a different matter that Kumar’s track record of frequent switching of alliances in the past decade, despite being a long-serving chief minister, has put his political credibility in
doubt. Till January 27, 2024, he was with RJD but on January 28, he dumped RJD and rejoined hands with BJP and formed the NDA government.
 

Besides, JD-U has also softened its stand on its old demand of special category status to Bihar and the caste census.

Interestingly, Singh has made this remark a day after the BJP- led alliance swept Assembly elections in Maharashtra and NDA won all four Assembly bypolls in Bihar. Singh belongs to powerful landed caste, Bhumihar, which overwhelmingly supports BJP and is considered their traditional voters.

A political analyst here said that Singh had targeted Muslims to send a political message to BJP that this minority community has been voting against both allies.

“It is widely reported in recent years that several BJP leaders have declared that Muslims don’t vote for the party. Now it is the turn of JD-U’s Singh to support this theory by claiming that Muslims don’t vote for JD-U. This is a well-crafted design to isolate a community by following the path of Right- wing politics”, he said.

However, sensing a political mistake on part of Singh, some senior JD-U leaders including Bihar Minister Ashok Choudhary have been trying damage control by saying that Singh’s statement was wrongly played by local media, he did not said that Muslims don’t vote for JD-U.

On the other hand, opposition RJD leaders said that Singh had exposed the real mindset of JD-U and made it clear that JD-U is sitting in the lap of BJP.

The writer is a freelancer based in Patna.