There is no one angle to look into the Bihar Verdict 2020. As the tussle was so close to the last, it would not be fully appropriate to give too much credit or too much blame to any one party or individual. Yet there is one lesson from the outcome. The state is heading towards bipolar politics between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal. The Janata Dal (United) and Congress will be only minor players in the coming five years – or may be more – even though the National Democratic Alliance has agreed on the chief ministership of Nitish Kumar, who had in his final speech during the election campaign on November 5 had announced that this is his last election.
The people of Bihar will have to adjust and accommodate according to this new reality. As there is little choice, Nitish will have to, willingly or unwillingly, toe the saffron party line and the Congress will have to concede that it can in foreseeable future not survive without a pair of crutches provided by RJD. The central leadership of the 135-year old party has somewhat realised this reality but a strong section of the state unit, largely comprising upper castemen, is yet to acknowledge this fact.
The result might have been different had the Congress contested around 50 seats instead of 70 it actually fought. Had these 20 seats been left to the RJD or even the Vikassheel Insan Party or Hindustani Awam Morcha – before they crossed over to the NDA – the result would have been different.
Similarly, the time for Nitish to arm-twist the BJP to get more seats to jointly fight any future election and be the ‘Bade Bhai’ or Elder Brother of the BJP in the state is over. Policy-wise his party has already diluted its stand on all the issues in which it used to have different position in the past. So ideologically the space for the third force has further shrank. The winning of a handful of seats by a particular Muslim outfit may be temporary bubble which is likely to burst in future as it had happened in Assam, where one such party did very well in 2011 Assembly election, but faded in the next and the BJP subsequently came to power for the first time on its own in 2016.
The bouncing back of RJD, very much on its own – unlike in 2015 when it contested in alliance with the Janata Dal (United) – and that too under the leadership of 31-year old Tejashwi Prasad Yadav is a big development. The party almost single-handedly upset the NDA’s apple cart. The baggage of Congress proved too burdensome to be carried and the Grand Alliance thus finished runners up by a close margin. On its own the RJD ended up emerging as the single largest party with 75 seats against 74 by the BJP.
The RJD has once again proved its tenacity to survive notwithstanding the conviction of its supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav. The result suggests that RJD still has social base in Bihar. In fact, its percentage of votes has increased. This time it has managed to even woo a handful of upper caste and a sizeable number of Extremely Backward Castes votes. The Janata Dal (United) appears to be a big loser on this count while the BJP managed to hold its fort, though the percentage of vote it got in 2020 is much less than 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Though the National Democratic Alliance has returned to power, the relationship within its constituents continues to remain somewhat tense. A faction of the BJP does not want Nitish Kumar to be once again given the opportunity to be named chief minister. For them it sounds somewhat abrupt and unnatural for a leader of a much smaller and weak party to hold this post. Two days after the election result, Union Minister and a senior BJP leader from Bihar, Giriraj Singh, in an exclusive interview to a television channel, reminded Nitish that RJD has emerged so stronger simply because of the mistake committed by him in 2015 when the latter became the Grand Alliance chief minister.
Giriraj said that he does not approve of what the Lok Janshakti Party did in the election yet he added that he is neither’ soft’ nor ‘hard’ towards its president Chirag Paswan.
Giriraj’s refusal to use strong words against Chirag is in total contrast to Nitish’s stand of complete dissociation with him by the BJP.
It was alleged that Chirag was used by a faction within the BJP to put up candidates in all the 115 seats where the Janata Dal (United) was contesting election. The move was aimed at weakening Nitish.
As the LJP’s move certainly damaged the poll prospect of Nitish’s party, the relationship between the two major constituents of the NDA further deteriorated, though at the surface level everything appears to be all right.
In the near future the process of forming government and running the state may go on smoothly but anything can happen in the months to come.
If chief minister Nitish Kumar’s announcement in Dhamdaha in Purnea on November 5 that this is his last election is taken seriously then the search within the BJP to groom a chief ministerial face of its own has certainly started.
So, by then the story of the Janata Dal (United) would be virtually over. The NDA would thus become synonym to the BJP and JDU, if it survives further, may have to play just the second fiddle.