Bihar: BJP was looking for a way to nail Nitish and may have found it in Srijan Scam

At a time when Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar plays a crucial role in cobbling up an Opposition alliance, the arrest of a prime accused in the Rs 1000-crore Bihar Srijan scam by the CBI has the potential to become a tool in the hands of the BJP to nail his government and derive political mileage out of it.

The arrest of Rajni Priya after a lapse of six years on the very day Lok Sabha was discussing the no-trust motion against Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot be viewed in isolation. Instead, it definitely has a connection and a political motive too.

A political gambit

It seems to be a political gambit that has the potential to fetch votes if the alleged failure of the Nitish Kumar government in preventing the siphoning of government money through a dodgy NGO by a nexus of unscrupulous bureaucrats and politicians cutting across party lines is established.

It may take into its loop some top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders of Bihar if their alleged complicity is established, but for a big catch like Nitish Kumar, who has posed a big threat to the political existence of Narendra Modi, the sacrifices of some of its leaders will not be a big deal for the BJP, which seems to be troubled by its perceived falling popularity among the masses.

It has been the alleged modus operandi of the BJP government to either trap the rival politicians in corruption cases through the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Income Tax, and Enforcement Directorate (ED) and get them to its side or weaken the Opposition — a process the Opposition calls as purification after passing through the “BJP washing machine”.

A plot to tackle Nitish

The move is being seen as a ploy to deal with Nitish Kumar with an iron fist. Even a bit of taint on Nitish Kumar’s clean image will be a major arsenal in the armoury of Narendra Modi to target him and paint him in bad light before the 2024 polls. The gravity can be gauged from the fact that the CBI, after arresting Rajni Priya, issued a statement terming the Srijan Scam as “bigger than the fodder scam” in terms of the enormity and the quantum of loot of public money.

Nitish has been spearheading a nation-wide political campaign against Narendra Modi and piloting the Opposition unity exercise since the beginning as he criss-crossed different parts of the country to talk to Opposition leaders. He played host to the first Opposition meet in Patna on June 23, in which 17 Opposition parties participated. After initial hiccups, the strength grew, leading to the assembly of 26 political parties in Bangalore and the formation of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).

The growing size of the Opposition alliance and unflinching unity among the allies has perturbed the Modi government no end. The INDIA leaders have launched blistering attacks on the government on the Manipur ethnic cleansing, the Delhi government Bill, and other issues in Parliament and outside. Therefore, it is imperative for Modi to ensure that his political rivals are weakened and vanquished before the Lok Sabha polls.

The land-for-job scam

The top leaders of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), including Lalu Prasad, his wife Rabri Devi, and Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, are already under a cloud in the land-for-job scam of the IRCTC and the multi-crore fodder scam. The ED has recently attached six properties of Lalu Prasad and his family members with a book value of Rs 6.20 crore in the land-for-job scam.

If the alleged attempts of the powers-that-be to nail the Bihar chief minister in this case succeed, the BJP will have three major leaders of INDIA from Bihar — Lau Prasad, Nitish Kumar, and Tejashwi Prasad Yadav — in its firing range during the elections.

The BJP appears to have become anxious ever since Nitish Kumar walked out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in August last year and declared to unite the Opposition parties across the country. The BJP’s disquiet emanates from the fact that the INDIA coalition could severely alter the poll arithmetic in Bihar and cause substantial damage to the saffron alliance since the chances of a split in the anti-BJP and secular votes would become bleak.

In the 2019 elections, the Nitish-led NDA had won 39 out of 40 Lok Sabha seats. With Nitish at the helm of affairs, the Janata Dal (U) had won 16 seats, while the BJP and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) led by Ram Vilas Paswan — all NDA allies then — had garnered 17 and six seats respectively.

The Luv-Kush votes

Ever since the NDA split, the BJP has been mounting frontal attacks on Nitish and engaging its top leaders to connect with the masses, especially the extremely backward castes (EBCs) that constitute nearly 30 percent votes and the Koeri (Kushwaha) caste that accounts for nearly 4 percent of the total population.

Nitish has nourished the Kurmi-Koeri combination, alternatively called the Luv-Kush combination. While the Kurmis consider themselves as descendants of Luv, the Koeris or Kushwahas trace their lineage to Kush. Luv and Kush were two sons of Lord Ram. Similarly, Nitish has also roped in the unwavering support of the EBCs by giving them priorities in government bodies and politics ever since he became chief minister in November 2005.

The BJP has been rattled by the challenge thrown by the ruling JDU president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh to reduce the BJP’s tally by 40 seats in Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal. The three states together have 96 Lok Sabha seats and the BJP had won 46 seats — 18 in West Bengal, 17 in Bihar, and 11 in Jharkhand — in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

However, the BJP recently has succeeded in roping in LJP led by Chirag Paswan and Hindustani Awami Morcha (HAM) leader and former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi. While Chirag is an accepted leader of majority of his caste men Dusadhs (Paswans), the militant caste among the Scheduled Castes in Bihar, Manjhi wields considerable influence among the Musahars, another Scheduled Caste, in central Bihar. Notably, Chirag did not perform well in the 2020 Bihar assembly elections but he brought down the JDU tally considerably.

Make or mar

The Srijan scam has assumed a political hue ever since it was detected and has the potential to make or mar the political future of several top politicians of Bihar. The Srijan scam also influenced political moves before a case was registered in August 2017. The decision of Nitish Kumar to switch the alliance from Grand Alliance to BJP-led NDA in July 2017 was allegedly influenced by the Srijan Scam. After a case was registered by the Bhagalpur police on August 7, the Chief Minister ordered a CBI probe into the matter on August 17.

The Srijan scam continued for 14 years between 2004 and 2017, and the NDA led by Nitish Kumar was in power for a major part of it. The then deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi was the finance minister from 2005 to 2013. The RJD chief Lalu Prasad had released photographs of Manorama Devi at various functions with BJP leaders, including Giriraj Singh, Shahnawaz Hussain, Sushil Kumar Modi, besides Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Red flags were raised several times about government money making its way into the accounts of the cooperative society. A chartered accountant, Sanjit Kumar, had sent emails to Bihar chief minister, the state cooperative department, and the Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram in this regard. An RBI official had communicated to the Bihar cooperative registrar to look into the matter but it went unheeded. The matter was also pointed out in the CAG report before it came into public domain.