Nitish awaits mandate of Mahadalits

Patna, Novermber, 8 :Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Mahadalit politics will be put to a test in the final two phases of the ongoing assembly polls.

Altogether 61 constituencies spread over 12 districts will go to the polls in the remaining two rounds on November 9 and November 20. Polling in these two rounds will determine whether Nitish's efforts to win over the Mahadalits - who constitute around 15 per cent of the state's population - will pay him dividends in the elections.

There are 13 seats reserved for the scheduled castes in the final two phases. They are: Rajauli, Makhdumpur, Agiaon, Rajgir, Bodh Gaya, Phulwari, Masaurhi, Rajpur, Mohania, Chenari, Kutumba, Imamganj and Barachatti (map). But there are 17 general constituencies - Kargahar, Arwal, Bhabhua, Ramgarh, Bikarm, Harnaut, Asthawan, Barbigha, Nawada, Hisua, Govindpur, Gurua, Sherghati, Tekari, Belaganj, Atari and Wazirganh - in western and southern parts of the state where the Dalit population is over 20 per cent.

In the majority of constituencies in Gaya district, Dalits constitute 24 to 30 per cent voters while in Nawada, it is between 20 and 26 per cent. In Rajauli constituency of the district, the Dalit population is 29 per cent (Census 2001).

The Bihar poll results in these seats will be an indicator of the success or failure of the efforts by the Nitish Kumar government in improving the conditions of the Mahadalit community. In the middle of his term, Nitish had set up a Mahadalit Commission to suggest measures for the betterment of the most deprived sections of the 22 Dalit castes.

The commission recommended that all Dalit castes, except Dusadhs (Paswans), should be categorised as Mahadalits since their socioeconomic status needed special attention.

In its interim report, the commission included only 18 Dalit castes and left out Paswan, Dhobi, Ravidas and Pasi from its ambit but it went on to include Dhobi, Ravidas and Pasi later, leaving only Paswan as Dalit.

Bihar was the first state in the country to have set up a commission to uplift those Dalits lagging behind others in social, financial, educational and political fields.

Nitish had said there was a need to bridge the gap between the Mahadalits and others. His government has announced a slew of sops for the Mahadalits in the past couple of years, which was seen as his attempt to win over these voters in the state.

The government launched a Mahadalit Development Mission to dole out sops worth Rs 300 crore among the Dalits in three years.

The state government has also decided to give three decimals of land each to Mahadalit families.

Nitish's move was also seen as an attempt to weaken the base of Lok Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan, who was the undisputed leaders of the Dalits earlier. His decision to create a separate " Mahadalit vote bank" sparked a row in the state.

Paswan said that Nitish was playing divide- and- rule politics in the name of Dalits and Mahadalits.

He alleged that the Nitish government was duping Mahadalits by promising three decimals of land.

"But his move will not pay any dividend in the elections," Paswan said.

Nitish has always maintained that his government's decision on Mahadalits had nothing to do with vote bank politics. But political observers believed he was trying to consolidate his base among the Dalits through welfare measures.

In the November 2005 assembly polls, the Janata Dal-United and its coalition partner BJP had won 15 and 11 seats respectively out of the total 39 seats reserved for the scheduled castes. In contrast, the RJD had won seven, while the LJP and the Congress had bagged two each. The CPI ( ML) and the CPI had won one seat each.