Bihar verdict: How NDA registered a record victory

If the NDA’s spectacular victory is the finest example of how alliances should work, much of the credit goes to groundwork done months in advance.

“In January this year, all five parties in the alliance held district-level meetings. The state presidents of all the parties attended the meetings where workers were told that they will have to work for the NDA candidate and coordinate with one another right down to the booth level," Bihar BJP chief Dilip Jaiswal told this correspondent.

Jaiswal said everything moved like clockwork. “When there was grumbling over seat sharing, Home Minister Amit Shah stepped in and pacified alliance partners. Later, when rebel BJP leaders filed their nomination papers, Shah intervened again and called them for talks. As many as 17 BJP rebels, including in Alinagar where 25-year-old folk singer Maithili Thakur was the candidate, withdrew their nomination,” he said.

The BJP leader recalled that during the campaign, leaders from all five parties sat together daily for threadbare discussions on who should be sent for campaigning where and what issues needed to be highlighted.

“The strategy worked miracles. The votes of each of the ‘Five Pandavas’, as Amit Shah named the alliance partners, were transferred to each other. The 29 seats in the kitty of Chirag Paswan’s LJP(RV) were considered the toughest because of the strong presence of Muslim-Yadav votes. Still, due to fine coordination, his strike rate was around 70 per cent,” he said.

The NDA’s strategy saw the BJP becoming the largest political party in the Bihar Assembly. The alliance managed to repeat its 2010 performance when it won 206 of the 243 seats. The victory was so overwhelming that 28 of the 29 NDA ministers won.

Invincible ‘Brand Nitish’

When he first came to power in 2005, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar promised better roads and improved law and order. He delivered by 2010, before making another promise of improving power supply in a state that was infamous for long cuts and diesel generator owners flourished by setting up private supply network. Nitish delivered again.

In 2015, when Nitish was with Lalu Prasad, he made “seven promises”, including power and tap water connections in every household, and interest-free loans for students. This was done as well. In his over two decades in power, the CM has carried the reputation of a leader who keeps his word.

For the first time, the NDA released a joint election manifesto promising industrialisation in Bihar. The people believed in Nitish’s promise of one crore jobs over the next five years, ignoring the Mahagathbandhan’s pledge of a job each to 2.5 crore families.

Despite 20 years in power, Nitish faces no anti-incumbency. Immediately after this election results, the buzz was he would be sworn in as the CM for the record 10th time.

Rs 10,000 women grant factor

In September, when PM Narendra Modi pressed the button transferring Rs 10,000 to each of the 75 lakh Jivika workers under the Mukhya Mantri Udyami Yojana, the NDA had a clear advantage over the Mahagathbandhan. “It went to the downtrodden women for whom even Rs 1,000 in their bank accounts was a luxury. Suddenly, they had Rs 10,000, with a promise it won’t have to be paid back. And they were also assured of an easy loan of Rs 1.9 lakh. It's a big change for these women," said former MLC Prem Kumar Mani.

The number of beneficiaries under the scheme kept growing and PM Modi and CM Nitish, by the end of the campaign, said about 1.4 crore women would be benefitting. The impact was there to witness on the polling days. Though Bihar women have had a soft corner for Nitish ever since he distributed free bicycles to government school girls in 2006, this time they broke their own voting record, beating male voters in turnout by 8.5 per cent (4 lakh votes).

That the NDA has done well even in the Muslim-dominated areas in Seemanchal only leads to speculation that a chunk of the Muslim women too voted for JD(U) candidates.

Fear of ‘jungle raj’ return

Though 20 years out of power, the “jungle raj” taunt against the Lalu-Rabri regime between 1990 and 2005 is still relevant in Bihar politics even as there is a generation that knows nothing about it. PM Modi was criticised for using “Katte Ki Sarkar” jibe for the RJD rule. "We will not let the people forget the era in which kidnappings, murders and massacres were a norm rather than an exception. Doctors used to get extortion demands and several businessmen fled the state," said BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy.

The RJD did keep Lalu and Rabri out of its posters, but Tejashwi Yadav, raising slogans in favour of late dreaded don-turned-politician Md Shahabuddin only helped cement the thoughts of the people that they did not want the “jungle raj” to return, said an analyst.