NDA all the way

THE biggest electoral battle of the year in India has turned out to be an apology for a contest. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has routed the Opposition’s Mahagathbandhan in Bihar — a thumping win similar to the BJP-led Mahayuti’s ruthless decimation of the Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra last year. The BJP has emerged as the single largest party, consolidating its position in a state where it is yet to have its own chief minister. The JD(U), led by Bihar’s longest-serving CM Nitish Kumar, has defied all odds to finish a close second. Nitish’s detractors, who were in a hurry to write his epitaph, have been forced to eat crow. Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal — the party that had won the highest number of seats in the 2020 Assembly elections — has ended up a distant third.