On Sunday evening, one of the news media houses exposed Nitish. While it is in public domain now that Nitish didn’t spend Rs 5 crore Gujarat aid meant for Kosi flood victims for two years, the news camera traveled to Kosi flood affected Madhepura area and interviewed one Yasmin Banu who told how she had not received any help from the state government after the flood that ruined her life. The TV channel also interviewed around half a dozen other flood affected people. All of them had faced hard time during to flood but had not received any help from the state government. The channel literally exposed Nitish’s Muslim appeasement drama by showing Muslim victims of Kosi flood, and their story.

Muslims constitute 16% of Bihar’s total population. There are 1 crore 37 lac Muslims in Bihar. They are significantly present in 60 assembly areas of Bihar. In last three years Nitish government has initiated several schemes to win Muslim votes. Kabrastan walls, separate hostels for minority students, monuments in memory of minority leaders, computerization of Wakf board’s properties, Chief Minister minority student encouragement scheme, financial aid to Muslim widows, coaching for Muslim students etc. are some of the schemes.

Before Nitish, the other governments in Bihar had initiated even more schemes appeasing the Muslims. Lalu became a champion of Muslim votes when he stopped Advani’s Rath yatra and arrested him in Samastipur. Ram Vilas Paswan was ready to support any party with condition that the Chief Minister of Bihar should be a Muslim. Congress party’s Bihar unit President is a Muslim.

So there is some kind of FIFA going on for Muslim votes in Bihar. And Nitish feels he made a goal by returning Gujarat’s flood aid. He could be thinking that the stadium full of Muslims would cheer loudly and clap on his cheque return goal. Though most of the Muslims are silent after Nitish’s votebank goal, possibly in his favor, the most powerful Muslim of this country, Ahmed Patel was one of the first to criticize Nitish’a act on Friday morning publicly.

Now read this. How Muslims became prominent group of voters in Bihar. One of the reasons is intrusion from Bangladesh.

In early 2000s Former Governor of Uttar Pradesh Shri V Rajeswar had publicly warned that the way we were shutting our eyes, a real prospect had arisen that, after Pakistan and Bangladesh, a third Islamic Republic would be carved out in the sub-continent. In important articles in The Hindustan Times, he had drawn pointed attention to the districts bordering Bangladesh, and the vast and strategic region whose demographic composition was getting changed.

And the districts that Rajeswar had listed in Bihar present the same forbidding picture. In Kishanganj, the place that sent Taslimuddin to Parliament, Muslims constitute close to 68 per cent of the population. In Purnea, Araria and Katihar they are 37 to 42 per cent. In these districts the population of Muslms is growing a quarter to three-quarters faster than the population of non-Muslims. And these are precisely the districts in which Bangladeshis are settling down.

Rajeshwar had written, inter alia, “Muslims in India accounted for 9.9 per cent (of India’s population) in 1951, 10.8 per cent in 1971 and 11.3 per cent in 1981, and presumably about 12.1 per cent in 1991. The present population ratio of Muslims is calculated to be 28 per cent in Assam and 25 per cent in West Bengal.

But then is there something like Hindu votebank in Bihar? No. Because Hindus are fragmented and scattered. There are some strange sections like Maha Dalit, Dalit, Yadav, Upper cast etc. This Maha Dalit, is completely new and shocking terminology for me residing in Gujarat. The politics of votebank would perhaps create Maha Maha Dalit class soon in Bihar!

Narendra Modi’s Bihar visit and post-visit episodes could be well utilized by the BJP to awake the 84% voters of Bihar with realization campaign that, because they are not united, they are being victimized by minority appeasement politics of Lalu/Nitish/Paswan and Congress. But BJP would not play this gamble, because the party is afraid of using ‘H’ word anymore, and more afraid of doing long-term politics these days. Also because, BJP believes, anything and anyone is better than to give even a remote opportunity to Congress.

Also read, same author’s article Rely on performance, dump votebank politics Nitish