Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 8: Both the ruling and the opposition coalition groups in Bihar are showing signs of unease over seat-sharing as the smaller parties in the groups are eyeing for bigger shares of seats than the major parties are prepared to concede.
In the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the union minister and the former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi said on Tuesday that if his party, Hindustan Awam Morcha, was not given at least 15 seats to contest, it won’t fight the elections at all. In a stance that he had taken even in the 2020 elections, he, however, made it clear that HAM would stay in the NDA camp. BJP chief JP Nadda, it is learnt, has spoken to Manjhi to pacify him.
“We are praying to NDA leaders because we feel humiliated. We need a respectable number of seats so that we get recognition as a party. If we do not get the proposed number of seats, we will not contest the election. We will support NDA, but we won’t contest the election. I don’t want to become Chief Minister. I just want our party to be recognised,” he said.
The NDA allies are yet to announce their seat-sharing formula for the Bihar election next month. According to sources, JDU and BJP may contest about 100 seats each out of the 243 seats. Chirag Paswan’s LJP (Ram Vilas) may get 24, Manjhi’s party 10 and Upendra Kushwaha’s party may be allotted about six. Besides Manjhi, even Chirag Paswan is not happy with this figure and has been pushing for at least 40 seats.
If Manjhi and Chirag Paswan are playing truant in the NDA, churning is on in the Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) partnering “Mahagathbandhan” where Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Part (VIP) is driving a hard bargain within the alliance and is also believed to be looking at the NDA and return to the alliance if offered desired number of seats.
Sources said the NDA has been sending feelers to Sahani, who was earlier a part of the BJP-led alliance, and is not averse to bringing him back. Sahani is reportedly demanding at least 30 seats from the Mahagathbandhan, and could get at most 10 to 15. Sources said the NDA is trying to lure Sahani over by offering seats which he has a better chance of winning.
If Sahani switches sides, it would be a repeat of five years ago. A part of the Mahagathbandhan then, he had moved to the NDA ahead of the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections, unhappy over the number of seats offered to him by the RJD-led alliance.
With the Lok Janshakti Party contesting separately, the VIP had secured 11 seats in the NDA at the time, the most after the BJP and JD(U). The VIP had gone on to win four seats. However, within a year, one of its MLAs had died, and in 2022, the remaining three had joined the BJP, amidst souring of ties between the VIP and the BJP. Subsequently, Sahani had quit the NDA and returned to the Mahagathbandhan.
While the BJP is said to have opened channels with him again, RJD sources claimed confidence that Sahani would stay in the Mahagathbandhan as the alliance was allowing him to pick his own candidates. In contrast, in 2020, the BJP had given the names of candidates for the VIP to field.
Originally from Darbhanga, Sahani once worked as a set decorator in Bollywood. The 44-year-old ventured into politics around 2013, and floated the VIP in 2018, projecting himself as the ‘Son of Mallah’. By then, he had already shown enough flexibility when it came to political loyalties. Before the 2014 polls, he rallied the Nishads behind Mr Narendra Modi, the then the BJP’s rising star and prime ministerial candidate.
After the BJP’s landslide victory, though, Sahani opened channels with JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar. By the time the Bihar elections of 2015 came around, Sahani popped up as the BJP’s “star campaigner”. But in 2019, Sahani took his VIP into the RJD camp.
What the jostling for Sahani between the two Bihar camps underlines is the political significance of his Mallah group, a part of the larger Nishad group bouquet, which in turn forms a big chunk of the Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) umbrella. The VIP is seen to wield considerable influence among the boatmen and fishermen communities based in the riverine belts of North Bihar.
According to the 2023 Bihar caste survey, the Nishad community comprises approximately 9.6% of the state’s total population, with the Mallah sub-group to which Sahani belongs making up 2.6% of its numbers. Apart from Mallahs, the Nishad community includes Bind, Manjhi, Kewat and Turha groups. It has been historically marginalised, with its members barely eking a living out of traditional riverine occupations.
In the closely contested election expected in Bihar, consolidation of any community behind either the Mahagathbandhan or the NDA could prove decisive. But both in 2020 and this time, the VIP is believed to be bargaining for more seats than its political heft – and the willingness of senior partners to comply is a reflection of its importance.