21, Aug 2015

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 18 of the 23 seats from the 18 districts that The Indian Express visited.
Written by Appu Esthose Suresh | Jehanabad/ Saran/ Nalanda | Updated: August 21, 2015 9:23 am
The almost three-fold spike in “communal incidents” after the BJP-JD(U) ruling alliance broke up on June 18, 2013, with both Hindus and Muslims listed as instigators, assumes political significance in Bihar during an election year especially when the BJP has shown significant gains across the state. Indeed, in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 18 of the 23 seats from the 18 districts that The Indian Express visited. Its allies LJP and RLSP won two seats each from these districts, with only Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Nalanda going to the JD(U).
Both sides see a potential harvest in these seeds of discord: the BJP uses the surge in these incidents to argue, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi did in his Saharsa rally this week, that law and order has collapsed in the state. The Bihar unit of BJP also claims the ruling political dispensation is biased and indulges in Muslims appeasement. The JD(U) and Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, however, lay the blame on the BJP’s door alleging that the incidents are part of its strategy to consolidate the “Hindu vote”.