VZCZCXRO7419
PP RUEHBI RUEHCI
DE RUEHCI #0526/01 3201239
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 161239Z NOV 06
FM AMCONSUL CALCUTTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1277
INFO RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI PRIORITY 1141
RUEHCG/AMCONSUL CHENNAI 0448
RUEHBI/AMCONSUL MUMBAI 0450
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA 0281
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU 0281
RUEHLM/AMEMBASSY COLOMBO 0108
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD 0217
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEIDN/DNI WASHINGTON DC
RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RUEHCI/AMCONSUL CALCUTTA 1567

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 CALCUTTA 000526 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
PACOM FOR POLAD 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV IN
SUBJECT: RULING COALITION LOSES 4  PARLIAMENT SEATS IN 3 DIFFERENT 
STATES 
 
 
CALCUTTA 00000526  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶1.  (U) SUMMARY:   On November 6, Congress and its ruling United 
Progressive Alliance (UPA) partners lost all four contested 
seats in Lok Sabha (national parliament) by-elections in Bihar, 
Jharkhand and Assam.  In Bihar, the opposition National 
Democratic Alliance (NDA) won two seats, while in Jharkhand, 
former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi, running as an 
independent, won a landslide victory.  In Assam, a candidate 
from the recently-formed Muslim Assam United Democratic Front 
(AUDF) Party easily defeated his Congress rival.  The Congress 
and BJP losses reflect how difficult it is for national parties 
to deal with complex local politics, including purely local 
issues, in elections in which regional and communal loyalties 
increasingly take precedence over ideology.  END SUMMARY 
 
¶2.  (U) In Bihar, the by-elections for the Nalanda and Bhagalpur 
seats were held after the Janata Dal-United (JDU)'s Nitish Kumar 
and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Sushil Kumar Modi 
resigned the seats early in 2006 to serve respectively as 
Bihar's Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister in the new 
NDA Bihar government.  Congress ally and UPA member Rashtriya 
Janata Dal (RJD) lost both seats to the BJP and the JDU.  Former 
Union Civil Aviation Minister and the Muslim face of the BJP 
Shahnawaz Hussain, won the Bhagalpur seat, defeating RJD 
candidate Shakuni Chowdhury by nearly 50,000 votes.  In Nalanda, 
it was an easy victory for the JDU's Ram Swarup Prasad, who won 
171,592 votes, many more than the combined vote totals of the 
RJD-backed and former JDU Member of Parliament Arun Kumar 
(53,840), and Communist Party of India's Gaya Singh (31,915). 
These latest defeats seem to confirm that Railway Minister Lalu 
Prasad Yadav's RJD party has still not recovered from its 
November 2005 defeat in the Bihar state assembly elections. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Contributing to the RJD's loss was Lalu's insistence 
on fielding candidates against his own UPA allies - Congress, 
Lok Janata Party (LJP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), 
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), and the Communist Party 
of India (CPI)--thereby splitting the UPA vote.  Lalu's 
candidates came second in both races.  Lalu, sources said, had 
made it clear to Congress and other allies that he would fight 
the two seats to establish his influence and to demonstrate that 
the UPA had no alternative but to work with the RJD.  "His aim 
was not to win the seats, but to come second and he has achieved 
it," a Bihar leader said.  LJP leader and Union Chemicals and 
Fertilizer Minister Ram Vilas Paswan told the media after the 
defeat that "some people were not interested in a unified fight 
against the NDA." (Comment: Lalu's willingness to "lose" the 
election is counter-intuitive.  Lalu's influence has waned in 
Bihar recently because his party has been compelled to share 
power in a coalition.  By increasing the strength of his NDA 
rivals, Lalu feels that he will become the unifying voice of 
opposition to the right-wing NDA, and easily win the next 
election. End Comment.) 
 
¶4.  (U) The NDA faced a setback of its own in neighboring 
Jharkhand, as it lost the Koderma seat, the only seat it carried 
in the 2004 general elections.  Former BJP Vice President and 
the first Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Babulal Marandi, created 
his own party, the Jharkhand Vikas Manch, after quitting the BJP 
in May 2006 and resigning his Koderma Lok Sabha seat.  Although 
running as an independent, (his party has not officially 
registered) Marandi defeated his nearest INC rival by a huge 
margin of over 194,000 votes.  The BJP candidate garnered so few 
votes that he lost his security deposit. 
 
¶5.   (U) The ruling Congress in the state of Assam experienced a 
shock, as the AUDF candidate Sirajuddin Ajmal won the Jamunamukh 
seat, defeating his nearest Congress rival by over 14,000 votes. 
 The seat had become a point of prestige between the Assam's INC 
Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and Assam's Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind 
President Badruddin Ajmal who heads the AUDF.  The by-election 
was held after Badruddin, who won from two seats, vacated the 
Jamunamukh seat.  The AUDF fielded Sirajuddin, younger brother 
of Badruddin, who defeated INC candidate Khalilur Rahman.  After 
the victory, AUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal boldly announced to the 
media that if Congress continues to ignore Muslims in the state, 
the party will soon be wiped-out. 
 
¶6.  (U) The AUDF was formed in November 2005 during the run-up 
 
CALCUTTA 00000526  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
to Assam's 2006 state assembly elections.  Many of AUDF's 
leaders are former Congress members upset by what they perceive 
to be the party's lack of attention to Muslim concerns.  Many 
Muslims had concluded that the Congress Party passively accepted 
the Indian Supreme Court's July 2005 verdict declaring the 
Illegal Migrants Determination by Tribunal Act (IMDTA) of 1983 
unconstitutional.  Only applicable in Assam, the IMDTA had made 
identification and deportation of illegal Bangladeshi migrants, 
who are mainly Muslims, virtually impossible.  Passage of the 
IMDTA had spurred Muslim votes for Congress.  The AUDF's split 
from and victory over Congress reflects the growing political 
strength of the Muslim community in Assam. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) COMMENT:  The recent by-election results demonstrate 
the need for national parties to pay sufficient heed to the 
increasing complexity and relevance of local politics.  The 
Congress lost in Bihar because Lalu was more concerned about 
demonstrating his influence in his state rather than working 
with other UPA parties to support a consensus candidate.  Lalu's 
counterproductive behavior is no surprise to those familiar with 
his personality. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) In Jharkhand, Marandi's victory as an independent is a 
sign that the people, fed up with corruption and five different 
governments in Jharkhand's six year existence, are looking for a 
leader who can move the paralyzed state forward. In Assam, the 
new AUDF party flexed its muscles to demonstrate the growing 
strength of the Muslim vote resulting from the demographic shift 
brought about by the influx of Bangladeshi migrants.  This 
fracturing of the political milieu in Assam is likely to inhibit 
the GOI's efforts to tackle the continuing insurgency in the 
state.JARDINE