A promise is a promise. And the BJP, by all indications, is not going to renege on it in Bihar. Nitish Kumar is set to return as Bihar Chief Minister for his fourth term since 2005, just as the saffron party had promised during the campaign. And yet, an analysis of the Bihar Assembly polls themselves ought to make it clear that such a step goes against the spirit of the verdict.
Let us try to understand why it is so. A simplistic view of the results would be that if the Chief Minister wins the majority in re-election, he becomes the natural choice for the top post. But this logic may not work in the coalition era, where the voter can often be placed in a Catch-22 situation.
They can be very much in favour of one partner of the alliance, and be totally against another. In such a situation, the sentiment will be reflected in the number of seats won by the different partners. This is what seems to have happened in Bihar where the BJP won 74 seats out of the 121 it contested, and Nitish Kumar’s JD (U) 43 out of the 115 seats it fought on.
A party in the ruling coalition, that cannot win at least 50 per cent of the seats it contested, cannot be said to have the moral right over the leadership of the next government.
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The JD(U) strike rate is far below 50 per cent, while the BJP strike rate is far above the mark. That explains the scraping through of the NDA in the state. It simply means the voters were strongly in favour of Narendra Modi, the face of BJP in all elections since 2014, but were averse to Nitish Kumar. In other words, they favoured an NDA sans Nitish Kumar as the head of the government.
In such a situation, if Nitish is made chief minister, it is a betrayal of the popular verdict. It will be an instance of the same amoral politics seen in Maharashtra, where three parties came together to form the government, while all the three had strike rates of below 50 per cent.
A two-way verdict
Taking the logic further, we come across a peculiar situation in Bihar. The verdict shows that the state is divided between two rivals: Narendra Modi (BJP) and Lalu Prasad (RJD), neither of whom was directly in the fray.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, surprisingly continues to enjoy the support of the people despite a failing economy, the Covid-19 crisis and its larger fall-out on the daily life of people. It shows that voters feel that whatever the current situation, only a strong leader like Modi can help them overcome it. It is also a clear signal that Rahul Gandhi’s relentless attack against Modi for the last several months has not only failed, but boomeranged against the Congress leader. Otherwise, the Congress would not have been such a drag in the Opposition ‘Mahagatbandhan’ (MGB) in Bihar.
More surprising is the popularity that Lalu Prasad still enjoys among the masses. If he were not in jail and in a position to contest elections, Bihar may have possibly seen a clear verdict in favour of the MGB. While many think this election has seen the emergence of Lalu Prsad’s son Tejashwi Yadav, the logic appears flawed. A significant number of people have voted for non-NDA and non-MGB parties. Although they were against Nitish Kumar, they had no confidence in Tejashwi Yadav either.
Coming back to Nitish Kumar, he lost close to 30 seats thanks to rebel candidates put up by Chirag Paswan, the new LJP chief. If Chirag’s demand for seats had been conceded, the NDA would have won a very comfortable majority. Nitish Kumar’s loss of touch with ground reality seems to have made him underestimate the LJP’s impact.
But beyond that, the CM has also been out of touch with the sentiment of the people through the Covid-19 crisis. He has come across as an arrogant leader at times, something that the politically astute Bihar electorate would not have overlooked easily. While UP’s Yogi Adityanath was seen to be doing everything he could to bring back migrant labourers to his state, Nitish appeared reluctant. So, it is not surprising that the people decided to vote against him although they were unable to decide on an alternative to him, especially given the faith they reposed in the leadership of Modi. That in a nutshell is the story of this election.
(Diptendra Raychaudhuri is a Kolkata-based journalist and author of several books, including the recently published detective novel Mirchi Memsaab’s House of Faith)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.
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