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Lok Sabha elections 2019: NDA heads for massive victory in Bihar
The 2019 general elections were seen as a big test for ‘brand Nitish’ as he remained the pivot around which the entire campaigning revolved in Bihar.
The NDA was heading for a massive victory in Bihar where it was leading in 38 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
The BJP and the JD(U) which contested 17 seats each were leading in 16 seats each. Another NDA ally, Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP was leading in all six seats it contested.
The Opposition’s Grand Alliance where the RJD and the Congress were the dominant partners failed to make any substantial impact with the RJD leading in just two seats.
The Lok Sabha election results will set the stage for another electoral battle in Bihar a year later, when chief minister Nitish Kumar will seek his seventh term.
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The 2019 general elections were seen as a big test for ‘brand Nitish’ as he remained the pivot around which the entire campaigning revolved in the state after making the BJP concede significantly for a respectable seat sharing formula. That the BJP agreed to climb down to treat JD-U at par was an admission of Nitish’s clout.
The BJP also did not have much choice in Bihar, a State where it has failed to evolve as the main force as it did in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand despite the Narendra Modi magic. It found in Nitish Kumar just the right man to get its poll arithmetic accurate to revive the old NDA magic riding the Modi factor.
The BJP seemed well-assured in his company, even at the cost of two old allies, Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM-S and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), who switched over to the Grand Alliance (GA). Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi even went to the extent of saying mid-way through the general elections that the NDA would get two-third majority even in the 2020 assembly elections due to the wide social base it covers and wave of development in the last 13 years.
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For Nitish Kumar also, it was an opportunity to shrug off any anti-incumbency tag that the Opposition has been trying to attach with him. He has consistently compared the dazzling lights in villages with the ‘lantern age’ of the RJD era and four-lane roads across the length and breadth of the state against the dilapidated ones before his tenure.
But issues did not matter much in the state, though apparent development did get people’s acknowledgment. Nitish countered Opposition’s criticism of prohibition without getting defensive and extolled its virtues for the poor. “Yet, as it turned out to be on the ground, it was basically a fight between ‘Modi-yes’ and ‘Modi-No’ all the way, something that suited the BJP,” said Prof Vijay Kumar of BRA Bihar University.
Bihar has always been crucial in national politics and it remained so, going by the attention it got from top national and regional leaders. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah addressed ten election rallies each, the tallest Bihar BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi slogged across the length and breadth of the state with 89 rallies and 43 road shows, while Kumar alone addressed 171 election meetings.
The Grand Alliance (GA), which did phenomenally well in 2015 assembly polls to stop the BJP, tried a new combination without JD-U by roping in smaller allies and focused on the old narrative of incarcerated Lalu Prasad with an eye on similar result. RJD leader Tejaswhi Prasad spearheaded the campaign in the absence of his father and the results will also be crucial for him, with his elder brother breathing down his neck for political space.
Despite the exit polls predicting a huge victory for the NDA, the RJD is keeping its fingers crossed. “We know the kind of feedback we got from the ground. It was encouraging. Let the results come,” said RJD’s Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha.
However, a noticeable part of the election in Bihar was that NDA remained organized from day one and was early to settle seats and had well-defined leadership both at the central and state levels. The Grand Alliance had initial hiccups due to seat-sharing issues. Lalu Prasad was not there to steer the campaigning as only he can do and above all, the campaigning appeared disjointed with allies apparently more focused on their own seats.
“The results will have far-reaching implications for Bihar. It will be curtain raiser for assembly elections a year later,” said Shaibal Gupta, member secretary of the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI).
