Not long ago Janata Dal (United) chief Nitish Kumar was referred to by Patna insiders as the editor-in-chief of Bihar. He had earned this reputation for his excellent management of the media, in Bihar and elsewhere. After 15 years of Lalu, Bihar’s elite didn’t mind that a chief minister who worked hard to improve the image of the state also indulged in a bit of personal image-making. But journalists and academics knew: “Lalu never bothered for what you wrote!” a popular academic-writer told me in Patna in 2012, “But Nitish? You cross him once, and he’ll never forgive you.”

The assessment was accurate: there had been many incidents that showed ads to media houses were distributed on the basis of their pliability quotient; there was also a minor controversy in 2012 when Justice Markandeya Katju, who was then chairman of the Press Council, pointed out the press’ lack of freedom in the eastern state.

Prabhat Khabar’s pragmatism

Control is always a function of power: this is best summed up in the approach of Prabhat Khabar, the most popular local newspaper in Bihar. For the greater part of almost a decade of Nitish’s chief ministership, Prabhat Khabar was known to be pro-government; editorials or news reports that criticised the Nitish led-National Democratic Alliance coalition of JD(U) and BJP were rare. In fact, in early 2014, Harivansh, the editor, was elected as a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament from Nitish’s party. But after the 2014 General Elections, which led to Nitish’s sudden, unexpected descent, things changed. The newspaper suddenly appeared a little non-partisan.

For the ongoing Assembly elections, says Prabhat Khabar’s corporate editor Rajendra Tiwari, Harivansh has disavowed his association with the newspaper: “Election tak chutti par hain woh [he’s on leave till the elections].” This might be sheer pragmatism – a way of ensuring that if the BJP comes to power, Prabhat Khabar would continue to get ads.

Elections are generally a good time for newspapers in Bihar. In a state nearly bereft of the private sector, the dailies, an overwhelming majority of which are in Hindi, survive on ads given by fast-moving consumer goods, or FMCG, companies and the state government. (A huge chunk of the latter consists of, in a construction-driven economy, tenders for this bridge or that building.) For almost two months before the election code of conduct applied, the Nitish government splurged on ads in all newspapers – financed by public money, of course – showcasing its past achievements and everything it would do if Nitish becomes chief minister once again.

But when the model code of conduct applied, the ads stopped; because, according to the Election Commission’s rules, no political party in power can publish government ads when the elections are on. The only ads that are allowed during this period are by parties or coalitions in their private capacity.

It seems Janata combine didn’t have enough funds for print ads. The business head of a national Hindi newspaper in Bihar, requesting anonymity, said, “We had multiple meetings [with Nitish’s team], but nothing came out. My personal assessment is that they have spent all their money on outdoor campaigns.” This could be a deliberate strategy: the core constituency of the Lalu-Nitish duo is almost entirely non-upper caste, a majority of which don’t subscribe to daily papers. But everywhere else – from Twitter to banners in decrepit small towns – Nitish has been a looming presence.

Janata’s non-participation made it easy for the BJP to win the paper ad wars. The

BJP has been, for weeks, posting ads on page-one in newspapers reading “Lalu-Nitish jawaab do – pachchis saalon ka hisaab do”. By questioning them over various matters of public policy, the BJP wants to conveniently erase the information from public memory that it was, for a good eight years between 2005 and 2013, part of the Bihar government, holding some of the most important portfolios.

Manjhi as NDA’s star campaigner

Amid rumours of poor performance in the first phase of Bihar Assembly polls, the BJP almost all of a sudden, decided to project state leaders in newspaper ads. It seems the BJP took Nitish’s Bihari-Baahri binary too seriously; many of these new ads don’t feature the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo at all.

But the NDA went further: while it has vehemently refused to project Sushil Modi (or anyone else from the BJP) as the chief ministerial candidate, it saw no harm in posting the solo photos of Jitan Ram Manjhi. But why not. After all, a photo op with a Dalit face is exactly the function Manjhi was supposed to serve for a mostly upper-caste the BJP in Bihar.

Dainik Jagran’s shrewd subtlety  

Dainik Jagran, one of the highest-selling newspapers in the country, has traditionally supported the BJP – and proudly so. And as an occasional follower, I have seen the paper’s editorials and op-eds frequently toeing the BJP line. In its coverage of Bihar elections, too, it did the same – though, given the close contest, a little more subtly.

An October 17 editorial in Jagran lamented the existing “Jungle Raj” for the election-related incidents of violence. The blame clearly was directed at the Nitish-Lalu duo, who have been at the helm for more than two decades.

Now, at the risk of exaggeration, let me say “Jungle Raj” is an upper-caste phrase – often used by the BJP for Yadavs (and Mayawati) in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. This assumes, incorrectly, that violence is simply a result of poor law and administration; this ignores that violence often also has a strong caste angle, for which the BJP, or at least its core vote base, could also be equally easily blamed.

Of course, Jagran also has a regular army of columnists of the likes of BJP leader Hridayanarayan Dixit who frequently churn out home-made wisdom on all things Hindu: in his last column, on October 16, he castigated liberal historians who argued that Indians in ancient times ate beef – an issue that our TV media successfully transported to Bihar’s election discourse.

Enter Son of Mallah

In the first week of October, most people in Bihar were informed that Mukesh Sahni, who is famous among other things for calling himself “Son of Mallah”, had switched sides from Janata to NDA. Since then, Sahni has been posting full-page ads on the first page of newspapers, saying “Aage badi ladai hai, NDA main bhalai hai”.

Sahni’s is a story out of Hindi cinema, and deserves some detailing: he was born into poverty in rural Bihar, and was 18 when he ran away to Mumbai in search of a livelihood.

Now 35, Sahni owns an event management company in Mumbai that has among its clients leading film production houses and industrialists. Last year, Sahni floated an organisation called Nishad Vikas Sangh. Since then, he has been organising rallies exhorting men and women from his Nishad caste – which comes under Extreme Backward Castes, a category created by Nitish Kumar in 2010 – to vote in a consolidated manner. For this purpose, he has hired a helicopter, in which he frequently gives ride to men and women from his community.

Surely, he must want to become a politician? No, not yet. His project is grander: his demand was that more and more people from his caste should get tickets to contest the election; in other words the Son of Mallah wants to be king-maker. Till as late as last month, he supported Nitish – saying Nishads had been “disillusioned” after voting for the BJP in 2014 Lok Sabha elections – but changed his mind exactly at the last moment. Sahni might not be a great asset for the NDA; but which party wouldn’t love free full-page ads on the first page of newspapers supported by the most successful Son of Mallah.