Results of Bihar Assembly Polls certainly spell a great shock for India-bloc and its members, particularly Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. There is no denying that an impression was created that their campaign had appealed to the voters. But prior to actually accepting that these results are an impact of Modi-Tsunami, Nitish-Tsunami and/or their National Democratic Alliance (NDA)-Tsunami, as projected by media, analysis of a few important political facts are important.
Ahead of the results’ declaration, there were speculations, that BJP was expecting a great win, one that would enable it to head Bihar government with a chief minister from its own party. The results suggest otherwise. BJP has won 89 seats. It may also be recalled, though BJP-stalwarts campaigned extensively banking on support of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar (Janata Dal-United), they refrained from naming him as their choice as the next chief minister of Bihar. Being an experienced politician, Nitish was naturally not unaware of this possibility. This perhaps explains his decision to field JD-U candidates from 101 seats, the same number from which BJP members contested. It is possible, BJP didn’t expect JD-U to win more than around 50 seats and thus were confident of having a chief minister from BJP. JD-U won only 43 seats in 2020 polls, while BJP won 74. Well, JD-U’s performance in these polls has apparently taken its ally BJP by a big surprise. JD-U has won 85 seats. There is a difference of less than five seats between those won by BJP and JD-U. The results of seats won by BJP and JD-U clearly indicate that neither is in a position to head the Bihar government without support of the other. But the fact that BJP has won more seats than JD-U, even though just a few, is least likely to be ignored by some BJP members. Nor can it be missed, that BJP’s campaign may not have yielded these results without support of Nitish Kumar. Not surprisingly, media reports are laying stress on results being a result of Nitish-Modi Tsunami and/or NDA Tsunami. It is worth noting, most are refraining from crediting only Modi for these results.
It would be interesting to see the political games BJP chooses to play in Bihar in the coming days to ultimately have its party member head the state government. For now, the party apparently has no choice but to opt for Nitish Kumar as Bihar chief minister. The old strategy of BJP has been to ally with strong regional parties to strengthen its own base in their states and then back-stab them to head their state government. BJP may not be able to use the same strategy in Bihar for some time as it is dependent on JD-U’s support at the center also. Having failed to win majority in 2024 parliamentary elections, BJP had to fall back on support of JD-U and Telegu Desam Party (TDP) to head a coalition government.
In Bihar elections, the fact that till this stage, BJP has used Nitish Kumar as a pawn, banking on his support, for return of NDA to power cannot be sidelined. During the campaign-phase, certain politicians didn’t refrain from making noise about age and ill-health of Nitish Kumar. It wouldn’t be surprising if they start talking more loudly about this. JD-U doesn’t appear to have any other leader as powerful as Nitish. It may not be astonishing if BJP starts using cards to create divisions within JD-U and attract its members to its fold.
There is no doubt, the performance of India-bloc has been pathetic. Of course, a lot can be said about negative impact of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls but that is least likely to change results at present. Noise was also being made about Tejashwi having failed to win against a BJP member prior to final picture having actually emerged. Tejashwi won, securing more 14500 votes than Satish Kumar (BJP).
It is important to deliberate on another aspect of these results, that is percentage of votes received by parties in the race. Party-wise, according to Election Commission, indicates RJD received 22.99% votes, BJP – 20.07%, JD-U-19.26%, Congress- 8.72%, Lok Janshakti Party Ram Vilas (LJPRV)- 4.98% and others less than three percent votes. If these votes’ percentage is considered, the ironical political reality of RJD heading it cannot be dismissed lightly. Nor can the picture be ignored that BJP has won from than 90% seats it contested from, even though it trails behind RJD in percentage of votes won. JD-U has also not managed to surpass the percentage of votes gained by RJD. This also refutes speculations that these results indicate RJD’s loss of vote-bank in Bihar. Percentage of votes won also indicate roughly a difference of around 10% between those won by key parties of NDA and of India-bloc. From this angle, the results probably also spell a shock for voters who chose to favor India-bloc. Herein, the role of vote-cutters, numerous candidates having been deliberately fielded for the purpose and so forth cannot be missed. But as this has happened time and again, there is nothing new about this. Voters have certainly becoming sharper about this trend as not even ten seats display a difference of less than 500 votes between the winner and his/her closest rival. Even if these seats had been won by India-bloc, the victory would still have been that of NDA. Eleven candidates fought for constituency of Sandesh, from where JD-U winner got 37 more votes than his RJD-rival.
However, there is no denying that Congress was probably over-confident about its base in Bihar. The picture may have been different if this party had given greater importance to a few regional leaders of its party and its allies. Perhaps, regional parties need to learn from electoral strategies exercised by Mamata Banerjee in the preceding West Bengal Assembly elections. Chief Minister Banerjee (Trinamool Congress Party) has been firm about not weakening her party’s base by yielding to other parties. This is her third term in office. West Bengal is headed for polls in the coming year.
Now, after winning in Bihar, BJP members have started talking about their next target being Mamata, as they are confident of ousting her from power by winning the next assembly elections in West Bengal. Of course, BJP-stalwarts are most likely to celebrate and make noise about their victory in Bihar for quite some time, which may not have been possible, without their banking on support of a strong regional leader and his party. In West Bengal, at present, BJP cannot boast of any such regional ally. But lets wait and watch as to what turn does politics takes place in West Bengal, particularly that linked with SIR!