Fatigue and resentment among Muslim vote base

If Muslims are considered the second of the two pillars that hold up the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), a large part of the reason must be that October afternoon in 1990 when the newly minted chief minister of Bihar, Lalu Prasad, decided to stop the raucous Rath Yatra helmed by Lal Krishna Advani in Samastipur and arrest the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stalwart.

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The Rath Yatra, that aimed to press for a Ram Temple in the erstwhile disputed Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya, had left a trail of bloody riots across the breadth of India and Prasad was quickly hailed as the new champion of secularism. "Nobody should dare spread communal tension in Bihar or he will be severely dealt with. I have the courage to arrest Advani, I will be unsparing in my punishment," Prasad thundered. It was a moment that helped him wrest the Muslim vote from the Congress and catapult himself into the national political centre stage.