Nitish was about to get his sixth term. Although his first term lasted only four days and the fourth accumulated for him only because he had given up half of the second to resume it, he has joined an elite league of satraps.
At the time of going to press, the NDA had won or was leading 124 seats to 111 for the RJD combined, crushing Tejashwi’s hopes of leading his father’s RJD to victory after 14 years.
Chirag Paswan’s first departure as the leader of the LJP family group did not go so well. Paswan Jr managed to partly achieve his goal of damaging Nitish, with several of his candidates consuming the NDA’s votes for the benefit of RJD. However, it was a Pyrrhic achievement, as it also exposed its claim of parity with JD (U) as empty.
Congress, which had seized 70 seats from RJD in exchange for its acquiescence to Lalu Prasad’s insistence to cast Tejashwi as a CM candidate, fared poorly, which proved to be a burden on RJD. In contrast, the other RJD allies did very well with CPI (ML) Liberation achieving 12 seats and CPI and CPM registering two victories each.
The scathing that saw rival camps locked in seat-to-seat combat was in keeping with the rollercoaster that defined a previous period that saw BJP-JD (U) transform from overwhelming favorite to underdog.
It was Tejashwi who turned the game around with its promise to provide 10 lakhs of government jobs to young people on their first day in office. It was a reckless and extravagant promise that, if implemented, could have bankrupted the state struggling to meet its minimal basic needs. But it turned out to be an ultra seductive proposition in a state where the Covid-19 pandemic has made rampant unemployment worse.
The RJD scion also tried to disengage from RJD’s legacy, the 15-year reign of his parents that remains etched in the minds of millions as rampant anarchy, as an approach to sections outside of RJD’s Yadav-Muslim core.
The scope also saw him enter into crucial tactical pacts to share seats with Congress and left-wing parties.
In the end, however, it seemed that he had fallen short, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi stopped him in his tracks in the second and third phase of the polls. Modi, who had also played a decisive role before, launched into the campaign with characteristic vigor, capitalizing on the position he seems to enjoy in the state and displaying all his oratorical skills. He tried to undermine Tejashwi’s promise of jobs and growth by reliving memories of anarchy under RJD’s 15-year hegemony, and put an end to the young leader’s attempt to break away from his party’s past by calling it the “raj ka yuvraj jungle.”
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The prime minister also tried to capitalize on the goodwill welfare measures launched by his government to reach women and the poor.
His was not an easy task. Because apart from the defiance of Tejashwi, whose strength was amplified by participating in their rallies, BJP also had to deal with signs of bad temper, especially among the BJP upper caste and Hindutva hardliners, towards Nitish .
The obstacles could be overcome with the help of the electorate that Modi has acquired among the poor and women. Nitish’s constituency between the extremely backward castes and the Mahadalites appears to have remained intact, providing another stronghold.
Indeed, the elections mark yet another example of the BJP’s attempt to present itself as the party of the poor that underlies the coverage of upper-caste sectors and Hindutva voters.
The result shows the effectiveness of the Modi factor but also presents new challenges. RJD and Congress have yelled badly, but that’s a much easier task compared to the question of how to run Nitish. The BJP leadership is firm in its pre-election commitment to retain it as CM regardless of how the two sides fared, but it also has to prepare for the task of assuring the incumbent that it will have the same authority that it enjoyed under . to be the main partner. In addition, he will also have to allay suspicions in certain neighborhoods in JD (U) that Chirag has been created to undermine Nitish. In the past, the leaders of JD (U) have been prone to conspiracy theories.
Despite their small numbers, Nitish has once again shown his support among the EBCs and women, which gives him plenty of room for future maneuvers.
The Bihar outcome capped a bad day for Congress, marking a setback for Rahul Gandhi’s high-voltage campaign to target Modi on various issues of China’s aggression, handling of the pandemic, and agricultural sector laws. . He’s unlikely to give up just yet, but the results have brought out the task that stares at him.
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