Caste, prohibition and onions made a dramatic entry into the Bihar poll campaign on Monday as the Opposition parties used them to take on the ruling Janata Dal United (JDU) and the BJP just before electioneering for the first phase of voting on Wednesday came to a halt.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav stirred up a hornet’s nest in what appeared to be a bid to divide politics on caste lines.

“Jab Lalu Yadav ka raj tha to garib seena taan ke babu sahab logon ke saamne chalta tha (The poor used to move defiantly in front of babu sahab during the rule of Lalu Yadav),” Tejashwi said at a rally in Rohtas.

Opposition Grand Alliance’s chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi is the younger son of RJD chief Lalu Prasad, who is currently incarcerated in Ranchi following conviction in the fodder scam cases. “Babu sahab” is what upper caste Rajputs are generally called in Bihar.

Though politics in post-Independence Bihar has always been heavily fraught with casteism, Tejashwi’s comments were seen as an attempt to reinforce it ahead of the Assembly polls scheduled on October 28, November 3 and 7. He realised his mistake and quickly talked about taking all castes together on the path of development, but the damage was done.

The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) latched onto his comments to remind how Lalu, in his heydays, had given a call to remove “Bhura Baal” — an acronym for Bhumihar, Rajput, Brahman and Lala — all general category castes. It had led to much caste friction in the state.

Deputy chief minister and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, currently in hospital after contracting coronavirus, said in a video message: “The abusive statements of the leader of Opposition (Tejashwi) at a public meeting in Rohtas are condemnable. The entire politics of the RJD has been to abuse the general category castes. This is the same party that opposed the 10 per cent reservation given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to the poor among the general category castes.”

However, Sushil also did not refrain from playing politics by raking up the issue of former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who quit the RJD before his death in September. He was a Rajput.

“This is the same RJD whose tallest general category leader Raghuvansh babu was insulted and had to leave the party. The entire politics of this party is on removing ‘Bhura Baal’ and divide the society. The BJP condemns this,” Sushil added.

Earlier in the day, Tejashwi raised the issue of inflation, including increase in onion prices, and attacked the BJP, the central government, and chief minister Nitish Kumar.

“Inflation is the biggest issue right now. The BJP leaders used to wear garlands of onions. The price of onions is now about to touch Rs 100 per kg. There is unemployment all around. People are starving, small traders have been ruined and poverty is rising. The GDP is falling and we are going through an economic crisis. But why the BJP, the Centre and Nitish Kumar are silent?” Tejashwi asked. He also symbolically protested by making garlands of onions for the BJP and the JDU.

On the other hand, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief and Jamui MP Chirag Paswan, who has stormed the campaign trail after completing the last rituals of his father, former Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan, attacked Nitish, who is also the JDU president, by alleging the failure of prohibition. He has been on the warpath for the last few months.

“Everybody is getting liquor in Bihar. The entire government and administrative system is complicit in this. There is no single minister in Bihar from the JDU who does not know about this. Not only I, but everyone is saying that home delivery of illicit liquor is happening,” Chirag said in his speeches and to mediapersons.

Wondering why the government was not reviewing prohibition and how smugglers and bootleggers were operating in the state, Chirag asserted that people across the state were getting liquor easily.

“How is it happening? The chief minister is patronising it. Prohibition cannot be done only through talking. It has to be executed. How so much liquor is being recovered in the state and from those involved in smuggling?” the LJP leader asked.

Chirag had earlier tweeted that people in Bihar were becoming liquor smugglers due to the lack of employment opportunities.

Nitish had implemented total prohibition in April 2016 by enacting a legislation to ban any consumption, manufacturing, trade or possession of liquor, and incorporating harsh punishments right from seizure and auction of assets of people involved in flouting the ban to life imprisonment. All parties in both Houses of the state legislature had supported it and the legislation was passed unanimously.

However, this did not deter the liquor mafia in the country to make deep inroads into the state which shares borders with Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bengal and Nepal.

It is a common knowledge that alcohol is easily available everywhere in Bihar due to a strong nexus of the mafia, enforcement agencies and politicians. At times liquor is seized, but it is just the tip of the iceberg.

On the other hand, prohibition has also led to numerous raids leading to the registration of around 2.14 lakh cases in which around 2.75 lakh people have been booked and over 1.8 lakh have been arrested. This has overburdened the entire judicial system in the state. Nearly 40,000 bail applications are pending in Patna High Court while 40 per cent of the accused in jail have been in some way or another flouted prohibition.

Bihar had to forgo tax revenue worth Rs 5,000 crore. The employment of several lakh of people engaged in selling snacks around liquor shops; cooking, serving and indulging in other works in bar and restaurants eroded.

Chirag’s vitriolic remarks hit the bull’s eye and Nitish quickly reacted to it at one of the rallies he addressed at Lakhisarai.

“An environment is being created against prohibition in the state by those involved in the liquor trade. They want the liquor ban laws to be removed. The liquor mafia wants to remove me somehow. I implemented prohibition to fulfil a long-standing demand of women. I had promised them before the 2015 Assembly polls that I would do so if I came back to power,” Nitish said.

The chief minister pointed to the decrease in disputes and crime as the benefits of prohibition. He asserted that prohibition was a social welfare step.