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Bihar Assembly Election 2020: LJP wins one seat but cuts into JD(U)’s votes
The party fielded 137 candidates, primarily in opposition to Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), after it decided to quit the National Democratic Alliance. As many as 25 Bharatiya Janata Party rebel leaders had joined the LJP after being denied a ticket by the party.
The Chirag Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (LDP) won a single seat in the 243-member Bihar assembly, results and trends for which were declared late Tuesday evening.
The party fielded 137 candidates, primarily in opposition to Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), after it decided to quit the National Democratic Alliance. As many as 25 Bharatiya Janata Party rebel leaders had joined the LJP after being denied a ticket by the party.
The party’s tally, however, is down from its last performance in 2015 where it managed to win 2 seats after contesting from 42 assembly constituencies. In the lone seat of Matihani that LJP managed to win, its candidate Raj Kumar Singh defeated JD(U)’s Narendra Kumar Singh by a slim margin of 333 votes.
Though the party got just one seat, it managed to slice through a crucial chunk of the NDA vote by impacting nearly 29 of the 58 constituencies that the JD(U) was trailing on. In most of these assembly constituencies, the LJP managed to secure a nearly 10% vote share, dealing a decisive blow to its erstwhile ally. Results for a number of these constituencies was still in process, according to the EC website until press time.
The party has, according to experts, managed to help the Mahagathbandhan by helping the RJD, the Congress and the Left parties cross the threshold to gain the upper hand in nearly 50% of 58 constituencies analysed by Hindustan Times.
In the key constituency of Dinara, where the LJP fielded former BJP loyalist Rajendra Singh, who had been an RSS worker for nearly 37 years, the JD(U) was reduced to 16% votes, while the RJD bagged victory with 34.97% votes. The LJP managed to secure 30.13% votes.
Former BJP legislators Usha Vidyarthi, who contested from Paliganj on an LJP ticket, and Rameshwar Chaurasiya, who contested from Sasaram, barely managed to secure a little over 10% of the vote share. Other BJP leaders including Ravindra Yadav managed only 6% votes in Jhajha, while Mrinal Shekhar managed 24.59% of the vote but failed to trounce Jayant Raj of the JD(U).
Psephologist Yashwant Deshmukh said on Tuesday evening that by the time final numbers would come in, the LJP would have impacted the JD(U)’s chances on nearly 35 seats. “Whatever the idea was, Hanuman has ended up damaging Ayodhya rather than Lanka,” Deshmukh said. “If Hanuman was implanted to inflict such damage, then he has done remarkably well.”
Deshmukh added that the NDA would have won no less than 150 seats if the LJP hadn’t cut down its chances.
Political analyst Sandeep Shastri concurred with Deshmukh that the strategy for the LJP to go it alone may have backfired. “At the end of the day, LJP has not achieved anything,” said Shastri. “There is no shadow of doubt that it has caused a major decline in the JD(U)’s seat count.” However, Shastri added that Chirag Paswan may have inevitably damaged the role his party would play in the future of Bihar politics. “Whatever his father Ram Vilas Paswan worked to achieve, the social identity, has been undone,” said Shastri. “It seems he (Chirag) is paving the way to become part of the BJP fold; in the long run, it will hardly be a gain.”
Deshmukh said he wouldn’t be surprised if Chirag is offered a position as a Union minister in the near future. “It was always impossible for a party like LJP, which barely has a 6% vote share in the state, to win nearly 35% without being in an alliance,” Deshmukh said. “Chirag did exactly as he was told... it wouldn’t come as a surprise if he is offered a Union ministership soon.” He added that BJP rebel candidates could never have made a mark since the party organisationally works with a cadre system. “Unless you have a long-standing grassroots level connect, the candidate wouldn’t have made a difference as the BJP goes forth as a party and not individuals.”
