Nityanand Rai’s ‘insult’ of Nitish Mishra widens BJP’s fault lines in Bihar

NEW DELHI: The public insult meted out to senior Bihar BJP state vice president Nitish Mishra by his party colleague Nityanand Rai, Union minister and someone who is being named as a possible successor to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, has generated a huge furore among the state party leaders and forward caste supporting social groups in a state where the caste factor plays an important role in the future promotion or demotion of a leader.
On 13 April, Rai, who was among the BJP leaders who was responsible for organizing a grand show in Jagdishpur, Bhojpur district, the birth place of Rajput king Veer Kunwar Singh, a hero of the 1857 first war of independence, was holding a meeting of state leaders to discuss on how to make the event “successful”. The celebrations were planned at a grand scale to engage with the Rajput, Bhumihar caste which have close to 15% vote share and have started moving away from the BJP as the recent party’s performance in the MLC elections and the Bochahca byelections revealed.
During the meeting of senior party functionaries and party MLAs, Rai, after sharing his views on how the 23 April programme in Jagdishpur should be done, which was to be attended by his boss, home minister Amit Shah, sought the opinion of the other leaders present in the room. One of the suggestions by Rai was to bring 1,000 workers to Arrah from each district. “Nitish Mishra raised his hand and when asked to speak suggested that rather than focusing on bringing party workers from all the 38 districts for the event, it would be prudent if the majority of party workers are requisitioned from Bhojpur (where Arrah lies) and the neighbouring 10 districts so that workers from far off districts do not have to travel for hours at the time when the state was witnessing a heat wave. He stated that it would also be more financially viable for the party. Everyone in the room, including state BJP general secretary Bhiku bhai Dalsania and state president Sanjay Jaiswal, too, seemed to agree with Mishra’s suggestion. However, Rai got infuriated and gave his piece of mind in a way in a tone and tenor that was not acceptable for any party colleague, leave alone someone like Mishra. It was clear that he did not like what Mishra said. Whether he was upset over the fact that Mishra spoke or whether he got infuriated by Mishra’s ideas which were opposite to Rai, is something one can speculate,” a party leader present in the room told The Sunday Guardian. According to another leader, both Dalsnia and Jaiswal had to “intervene” to stop the situation from getting worse. However, the matter did not end there. “In the corridor, both Mishra and Rai came across each other. Mishra, after greeting Rai, told him that Rai had taken his suggestion that he made inside in a wrong way. To this, to the surprise of every one of us who were present there, Rai told Mishra that he does not have ‘aukaat’ (capability) to bring even 100 people to an event before walking off,” another party MLA told The Sunday Guardian.
This public insult of Mishra—who is a four-time MLA, apart from being a multiple time minister and the son of three-time Bihar CM, Jagannath Mishra—has not gone down well in Bihar where caste identity is held dear to their hearts by the electorate. Social and semi-political groups on ground and social media are calling this as a deliberate snub by Rai, who belongs to the Yadav community, against the forward caste of the state (Rajput, Brahmin and Bhumihar are clubbed as forward caste).
Sudhir Sharma, who is the convenor of the “Bhumihar-Brahmin social front”, called the action by Rai as “sad” while stating that Rai will have to pay a political price for humiliating a Brahmin-Bhumihar leader. Sharma was incidentally removed from the post of party’s general secretary in 2018 when Rai was the state president on the grounds of indiscipline. Sharma, a Bhumihar by caste, who was till then a prominent face of the party in the media, was considered close to BJP stalwart Sushil Modi.
Modi is still regarded as the spine of the party in the state for more than two decades now. Earlier this week, in a clear reference to Rai, who was incharge of the Bochahca by-elections, Modi took to social media to express his disappointment over the party’s candidate massive loss, asking why the party lost despite so many leaders campaigning there. The ascent of Rai and Yadav as far as Bihar is concerned, has coincided with the political descent of Modi and other BJP stalwarts who are from Bihar. Mishra, though considered “neutral” as far as groupism is considered, is seen by few state leaders as belonging to the anti-Yadav camp as he is not “close” to them.
According to political observers, the Bihar BJP is right now witnessing major internal disturbance. “The traditional supporters of BJP in the state like Brahmin, Bhumihar, Thakur and Bania are feeling that they are being sidelined ever since Bhupendra Yadav was made incharge of the state. Rai is among the most prominent faces of the Bhupender Yadav camp in the state. Though Harish Dwivedi and Anupam Hazra are the official incharge of the state since December 2020, no major or minor appointment in Bihar, as far as BJP is considered, in the party or in the government, happens without the same being approved by Yadav,” a senior party functionary told The Sunday Guardian.
According to him, Bhupender Yadav has been focusing on bringing the 15% strong Yadav voters, who have traditionally voted for Lalu Prasad Yadav and the RJD, into the BJP’s fold, a process due to which leaders from the “forward” castes have been sidelined. In the 2020 Assembly polls, the BJP, which contested on 110 seats as per alliance arrangement with the JDU, gave tickets to 15 Yadav candidates. In 2015, when it was contesting on 153 seats, it had given tickets to 22 Yadav candidates. In 2010, it gave six tickets to Yadav candidates.
It was under this focused approach that Rai was appointed as the state president in 2014. However, in the 2020 polls, electoral data shows that the Yadav voters did not let their political will be affected by BJP’s focus to attract them and voted for the RJD in overwhelmingly large numbers.
“The RSS, too, has started realizing that the sidelining of the ‘forward’ caste is not going to help the party and that is one of the reasons that the BJP was forced to celebrate the birthday of Rajput king in such a grand manner. However, the grandeur of such ‘shows’ don’t stay for long and the central leadership needs to take concrete steps to show that it still values the forward caste. If some leaders continue to hurt, ignore us just because we are from the ‘forward caste’, then we will be forced to take two steps—look for other options and weaken the party,” a party MLA who comes from the forward caste told The Sunday Guardian. Nitish Mishra declined to speak to The Sunday Guardian when reached for a comment on the 13 April developments. A message was sent to Nityanand Rai seeking his version, but no response came from him until the time the report went to press.