Now 'dal' is a poll issue in Bihar

The rising price of pulses has become a hot issue during the Bihar assembly polls. And with hardly a week to go for the third of the five-phase crucial polls, the ghost of the relentless price rise is haunting the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance. M I Khan reports.

Sobha Devi, Pancghua Devi and Mahua Devi -- all house wives -- have stopped cooking dal, barring two days in a week. Instead, not they have started preparing watery vegetable curry and spices to substitute the lack of pulses.

But these women, all residents of Janipur village under Phulwari Sharif assembly constituency on the outskirts of Patna, are only three of the millions across 243 assembly constituencies in 38 districts, who are facing a tough time to cook food without pulses ever day.

Even women from middle or lower middle-class sections in an urban hub such as Patna admit that the rising pulses price is a bad development.

Also read: Why your tur dal has become so expensive

“After onions, it is now pulses; we are facing a difficult time, but we manage by using pulses in lesser quantity,” says Manju Singh, a resident of the posh Rajendra Nagar locality in Patna.

“We voted for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha polls, because  he promised to check the price rise. Butt nothing has happened; and now the price of arhar dal (pigeon pea) has crossed Rs 200 per kg,” says Satnarain Kumar Singh, who runs a small business.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, both star campaigners of the grand alliance of the Janata Dal-United, the RJD and the Congress are playing the ‘dal’ card to hit out at Prime Minister Modi.

Sensing trouble, the BJP and its two Union ministers from Bihar -- Ram Vilas Paswan and Radhamohan Singh -- on Tuesday began damage control by blaming the Nitish government for it in a press conference in Patna.

Paswan, chief of the Lok Janshakti Party, a partner of the BJP-led NDA and Singh, who is the Union agriculture minister, tried their best to downplay the rising pulses prices and at the same time, promised the people to provide them pulses at a lower value if they were voted to power.

Both claimed that if their government comes to power, the price of pulses, particularly arhar would come down to Rs 100 per kg.

However, the grand alliance knows well that the potent commodity can be a political game changer for them.

Naval Sharma, a JD-U spokesperson said that the BJP had suffered a defeat in the 1998 Delhi and Rajasthan assembly elections due to their failure to curb rising onion prices.

“If the onion crisis can play a major role then, why can’t pulses this time?” he muses.

Sharma says costly pulses symbolise price rise that affects the poorest of poor to the middle and lower-middle class alike.

The grand alliance too, is trying to cash in on the current pulses crisis. Lalu and Nitish are not missing a single chance to raise this issue in rallies and reminding people that costly pulses are a result of failure on part of the Modi’s government.

Lalu was seen reminding people in his rallies that how poor people have been deprived of pulses from their food. “Modi has deprived the poor from dal-roti or dal-bhaat -- pulses have disappeared from the plates,” he said at a rally.

“The BJP is filling pockets of the rich by taking away plates from the poor," Lalu repeatedly said that in his rallies in the last four days.

Nitish, on the other hand targetted Paswan and Singh for blaming him for the price rise in Bihar.

“Why are pulses being sold at Rs 200 kg in BJP-ruled states including Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan? Modiji, forget 'acheche din' (good days); please return our 'purane din' (old days)," Nitish said while addressing a rally in his home district Nalanda on Tuesday.

Image: A labourer carries a sack filled with pulses at a wholesale pulses market. Photograph: Rupak De Chowdhuri