Bihar politics has climbed centrestage in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. Last week, the RJD and LJP forged an alliance with the Samajwadi Party. George Fernandes rebelled from the party he had founded. Another senior JD(U) leader Digvijay Singh announced he would fight as an Independent from Banka after an ?autocratic? party leadership, Messrs Nitish Kumar and Sharad Yadav, denied him the party ticket. A host of other leaders, many from the JD(U), shifted loyalties to test their electoral fortunes from other party platforms.

Last election?s major player, RJD (22 seats), and its junior partner in the UPA government, LJP (4 seats), have this time turned their back on the Congress in the state. The RJD and LJP have even reached beyond the state and joined hands with the Samajwadi Party in UP to form a ?broad-based forum of regional parties?.

The pact, at first glance, means that the SP and RJD-LJP would not field candidates in each other?s states. Political analysts, however, say that there is more to the RJD-LJP-SP partnership than just that. ?It is an alliance within the UPA alliance and a pressure tactic vis-a-vis the Congress to say that regional parties will play a big role in formation of a government at the Centre? says a political commentator.

Despite the aggressive rhetoric, Lalu Prasad Yadav knows 2009 is not 2004. The RJD?s vote share has shrunk from 30.67% in the 2004 Lok Sabha election to 23.45% in the 2005 assembly elections. Hence, an alliance with the SP was a profitable proposition for the RJD-LJP. Even if the Bihar duo fell out with the Congress after elections, they would still have the option to play the role of cumulative vote swinger for the Third Front.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is apparently riding the ?development? wave and who has a clear edge over the RJD-LJP, has suffered a serious dent in his image with the manner

in which party patriarch George Fernandes has been denied the ticket from Muzaffarpur. ?A leader of George?s stature cannot be treated shabbily?, says Congress leader Umakant Singh.

The JD(U) has no tenable reason to offer for denying the ticket to another senior leader and former Union minister Digvijay Singh. After all, he lost only by 4,669 votes to RJD?s Girdhari Yadav (now in the Congress) in the last election. Singh represented Banka twice (1998 and 1999). The impression of the JD(U) slowly becoming a one-man (Nitish) party has gone out to the people.

Yet Nitish still seems poised ahead of his rivals. Apart from development, his social engineering?from 50% reservation to women in panchayats to welfare schemes for Muslims to representation for EBCs in the ministry?might upset the old MY (Muslim-Yadav) and DM (Dalit-Muslim) calculations of both Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan. Chances of a free and fair poll might also work to the NDA?s advantage. Booth-capturing ended in Bihar only after KJ Rao wielded the stick in the EC in 2005.

A fair poll in the forthcoming elections would ensure that voter turn-out exceeds the 58% of 2004. The persona of the chief minister and regional issues such as roads, schools and hospitals were never as dominant a factor as they seem this time. Even the BJP, a national party, is content to play junior partner to the Nitish-led JD(U) in Bihar.

The RJD has its job cut out for it. Elections 2009 are a litmus test for Nitish Kumar, a moment of truth for Lalu Yadav and another opportunity to test his electoral clout for Ram Vilas Paswan.