A special monetary package for a poor state going to polls in a month or so could only be a bait for the voters, that too a fairly obvious one. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hopes that prime minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of a special package worth Rs 1.25 lakh crore earlier this week at a rally in Ara near Patna could be the game-changer for the upcoming Bihar assembly polls. This humongous promise of roads, railways, airport, refinery, power plant and much more can have a big impact on the country’s poorest electorate.Yet, this still is just a poll-time promise and already the Opposition is asking the BJP and the Central government whether this special package would also end up like the special promise made by Modi during the Lok Sabha polls — Rs 15 lakh for every voter when the black money stashed abroad returns home.Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar who is under attack from the BJP insists that Modi is only “repackaging” what is due to the state by way of Central schemes.But no voter does hair-splitting of campaign promises and slogans at the polling booth. Nobody stops to look at budget figures to find what’s new in a promise. The voter is normally carried away by the charisma, credibility and connect of the lead campaigner. Modi in 2014 had all these. Undoubtedly there was a wave of support in his favour from Kosi to Kanyakumari, which got translated into a clear and stable Parliamentary mandate, a first in 30 years. But does he still have that kind of support?Well, the BJP could not win a simple majority in the assembly polls in Maharashtra, Jharkhand or Jammu and Kashmir. And the party had to face a humiliating drubbing in Delhi, winning just three out of 70 seats.The special package for Bihar should be seen and appreciated in this perspective.The Bihar polls are the most important and tough elections for the BJP after the last Lok Sabha polls. Earlier, the BJP was fighting discredited incumbent governments in all the assembly polls it contested last year.The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)-Congress alliance in Jharkhand, the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government in Maharashtra, the Congress government in Haryana and the National Conference-Congress government in Jammu and Kashmir had all crises of credibility while defending debilitating charges of corruption. None of the governments even had a fair chance in the polls and the BJP’s success march was made easier by the alliance partners abandoning the Congress in Maharashtra and Jharkhand.That is not the situation in Bihar. The incumbent is a credible leader who turned the terribly administered state around. Chief minister Nitish Kumar’s personal integrity and stature remain unscathed. Of course, his Janata Dal-United [ JD(U)] has cleverly tied up with the Congress and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to ensure that the BJP doesn’t take advantage of a divided opposition as in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. When they contested separately, the BJP had won 22 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 general elections with about 30% votes.Along with Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samata Party , the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had 31 seats and 36.5 per cent votes. But in the changed situation, the votes polled by RJD, JD(U) and Congress add up to a formidable 45 per cent.Sure, contradictory social forces represented by JD(U) and RJD fighting each other for over 15 years on the ground may not come together during the polls.The biggest imponderable in this election is the efficacy of the transfer of votes between RJD and JD(U). Will Yadavs vote for JD(U) candidates? Will non-Yadav other backward classes (OBCs) who had earlier rooted for Nitish vote for Lalu Yadav’s party? These contradictions cannot be papered over by rhetoric and it would take all of Lalu’s and Nitish’s efforts and election-winning talent to bring these disparate social forces together.It is to make the most of this grassroots level contradiction that the BJP has been trying to hardsell Modi as a leader of the OBCs. Amit Shah ’s claim of Modi being the first OBC prime minister, conveniently forgetting Deve Gowda, was aimed at targeting the non-Yadav OBCs of Bihar. The BJP’s Bihar unit recently held an exclusive meeting of the Teli caste, a backward caste group of oil pressers, claiming that Modi is a Teli.The attempt now is to celebrate the accident of Modi’s birth into a political opportunity to woo backward caste members.There is a hint of desperation in this attempt because Modi never pursued OBC politics, which essentially involves seeking the empowerment of socially and economically weaker sections of the society. OBC politics through the decades was all about demanding a fair share in premium educational institutes and high-powered bureaucratic jobs for the socially backward masses. Modi is never known to have championed this cause.But the BJP is busy flashing Modi’s caste certificate and offering a special package because, if it loses Bihar, the results would be read as Modi’s personal defeat. It would dent the PM’s largerthan-life persona and make him vulnerable to attacks from within and outside. So, the Hindu Hridaya Samrat is getting repackaged as a Teli Samrat along with more promises of achhe din.