Yesterday the results of Bihar assembly elections that were held recently, in the eastern state of Bihar were announced. Out of a total of 243 assembly seats the alliance of Janta Dal ( United ) with other parties got 180 seats, while its main opposition the ruling party at the centre, the National Democratic Alliance ( NDA ) got just 56 seats, while other indepedants got 7 seats. This heavy loss was a huge setback for the aspirations of the Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) led by the PM of India, Mr. Narendra Modi, while it was a landslide victory for the Janata Dal United led by Bihar Chief Minister NitishKumar and his ally RJD ( Rashtriya Janata Dal ) led by the former CM Laloo Prasad Yadav.
This election was fought over 5 phases of voting. It had all the essential ingredients of an assembly election like the drama, different types of comments, etc. However the results were totally unexpected for most political analysts of this country. Nobody even thought of such a huge defeat for the NDA. It came like a severe shock for NDA supporters. And opposed to that, the alliance of JDU and RJD were on top of their worlds.
Interpretation of Bihar results :--
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The chief reason why Modi and his team lost in Bihar, seems to be this one:-
The people of Bihar are poor and emotional. They like their culture, language and being a " bihari" is a matter of pride for them. Nitish and Laloo encashed on this. Nitish is a shrewd politician. He came out with the slogan " Bihari ya bahari " meaning either you elect a Bihari in Bihar or you elect a bahari ( an outsider like Modi's BJP ) in the state. The people got emotional. And kicked out the outsider.
Had Modi propagated the idea of projecting about 8 to 10 politicians from Bihar itself to campaign for the BJP, the bihari people would have identified with them and given much more votes to them. But here that bridge, that connect, with the people went missing. People couldnot find a " Bihari babu" in Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, the two main campaigners of the BJP during their rallies in Bihar. Why ? Firstly because they couldnot speak the Bihari language ( bhojpuri ). Bhojpuri phrases like " hamara babuva, hamara sasurva, ui gava, iha ay gava... " which are very famous amongst the local biharis, were totally missing in the speeches of Modi and Shah. Secondly, due to this they were never able to strike a rapport with the general bihari person, who came to the rally. This element kept on missing till the end of the election campaign, and unfortunately for the BJP, it just couldnot spot out the problem this time.
Secondly, Nitish had Prashant Kishor in his team, as the chief Strategy maker. He organised all the rallies such that they made the maximum impact on the public. He gave maximum coverage to Laloo in those regions with more people of scheduled caste and OBCs residing in them as also where muslims were in huge numbers. He asked Nitish to focus on the rest of the regions. This made a huge impact.
Thirdly, Bihar has a huge population of backward caste people. Modi and Shah have an image of being more favorable for the upper castes and less inclined to the lower or backward castes. Although Modi tried to convince them that their share of reservation will never be eliminated whatever be the anti-reservation protests going on, it failed to strike a chord with them. On the other hand, Laloo is very popular amongst the backward classes over there and he alongwith Nitish, spelled a magical cast over those lower caste public with their language with a specific bhojpuri accent. Modi should have gone for those lower caste upcoming leaders of BJP of Bihar, to make a large number of public campaigns, in order to woo those lower caste people, which he didnot.
Thus, inspite of announcing a huge 1.6 lac crore budget for the development of Bihar and all the hardwork by his team, Modi and his party failed in Bihar.
Interpretation of Bihar Results on the national scene :--
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What does this election result do on India's current political scenario ? How much does it affect the position of the PM Narendra Modi and his party BJP ? How much does it affect the main opposition party at the centre, i.e. the Congress ? How much have the equations changed, politically ? Let us examine.
Although it was a humungous victory for the JDU+ RJD + Congress alliance and an equally suffocating loss for the BJP, I think the BJP doesnot need to worry at all yet. The reasons are quite obvious. Right from May 2014, when the General elections ( the biggest elections of India, in which it votes for the Members of Parliament ) took place, the BJP has been winning almost each and every election, wherever it has participated. In the general elections last year, it won with a total of 282 seats out of a total of 543 seats ( actually the NDA, the alliance of which BJP is a part of won 332 seats ), which was a huge victory by any single party at the Centre ( New Delhi ) since 1984. Then it won the assembly elections in Maharashtra with a thumping majority. That was followed by election in Haryana, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh. In Haryana and Jharkhand it won sizably and in Andhra Pradesh it came second. After that if successfully formed an alliance with the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir. It lost the elections held in the state of Delhi however. Inshort, apart from the loss in Delhi to AAP, it won everything or came second and formed a ruling alliance with those who came first. Its track record in elections since November 2013 has been illustrious ( Before the General Elections of 2014, it had sweeped a clear majority in the assembly elections of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh in between September 2013 and February 2014 ). After such an amazing record of victories, it has just lost the elections in Bihar. Some of the opportunistic politicians are making a hue and cry about it and making ridiculuous comments.
Sharad Yadav, a politician whose political career was about to be over if JDU hadnot performed well in this election and was on the brink of political oblivion, said that the people of India have now lost faith in the BJP and the leadership of Narendra Modi !! They are fed up of the communal politics of Modi and Amit Shah !! How come ? The election was just in Bihar and not allover India. Then how can you say the people of " India " have lost faith in BJP and Modi ? Is Bihar the equivalent of India ? Not at all. What a laughable, ridiculous statement !!!
Nitish Kumar, the chief of JDU, said that he got phone calls from allover the country and he found that people throughout India are finally releived that Modi lost !! Again the same mistake - people of " India " ??!! Are Nitishji, aap nashe me ho kya ?? Is Bihar the same as entire India ? Hahahahah.... what a laughable statement again !!!!
After winning about 7 to 8 elections in a row, if the BJP has lost 2 elections ( in Bihar and Delhi ) then it doesnot affect the party at all. Yes, it does require a bit of introspection of what went wrong in Bihar, but it is by no means any " major " setback for Modi or the BJP. Modi is still the PM, of this country, whom lacs of people love so much and BJP is the favorite elected party, who is ruling India as of now.
Let us examine who exactly are these two guys - Nitish Kumar and Laloo Prasad Yadav. Let us take Laloo Prasad Yadav first. He is more or less a comic character but more infamous for his huge corruption scandal, " the Chara Ghotala" ( the Fodder scam ). In 1998, it was revealed that Laloo Yadav,when he was the CM of Bihar during 1991 to 1996, misused the state funds and diverted an amount of Rs.900 crores ( or Rs. 9000 million or 9 Billion rupees or 150 million US dollars ) into his private individual accounts. For this he was convicted " Guilty" in 2013 and went to jail for the same. He was given a jail sentence and is rightnow out on Bail. Such a criminal, such a scamster got the highest number of seats for his party RJD in yesterday's results !! Look at the strange ironical situation. A criminal will now be either the kingmaker or the King of Bihar !! Can one assume more unfortunate circumstances than this, for a region ?? The answer is " No ".
Compared to Laloo, Nitish Kumar's track record as a politician is much better. He has won two assembly elections before this. This is his third consecutive victory in Bihar making it a hat-trick.
However as person, one may call him " Opportunistic and without any ideals ".Here is why. During 2005 and 2010, he fought the elections there, making an alliance with the BJP and opposed the RJD, the party of Laloo Yadav. During those years, he laughed at the lossed of Laloo and blamed Laloo and his wife Rabadi Devi, for all the poverty and lack of development in Bihar. He even went forward and gave the rule of Laloo and Rabadi in that state as " JungleRaj" meaning the rule of chaos and disorder. He was very comfortable being an ally of BJP till 2012. But suddenly when he saw that the scene within the BJP was changing and Narendra Modi would become the next Prime Ministerial candidate of the party, he showed his true colors. He just couldnot bear the idea of Modi becoming the PM, if BJP won. Obviously he had some ego issues with Modi. Now because of this attitude problem with Modi, he just broke apart the alliance with the BJP in 2013 !! The alliance which was doing so good in Bihar and had served the state as a ruling alliance for straight 8 years between 2005 to 2013, was suddenly no more !! Why ? Was it because it did any damage to the general good of people of the state ? No. Was it because it was not able to deliver to the promises it made during the elections with the public ? No. Everything was alright. The alliance was not doing any damage to the general well-being of the state and it was able to give a proper impetus to the growth and development of the state. But the main hitch, the main sticking point was Modi. Nitish never liked the idea of Modi becoming the PM and due to this trivial reason, he sacrificed the wonderful alliance with the BJP !! What an egoistic, selfish individual this NitishKumar is, that he sacrificed the very alliance which gave the best growth to the people of the state in the last 6 decades ( since independance ) only because he had some personal grudges with Modi !!
Now these two people, one extremely selfish and other totally corrupt have come together to form an alliance and unfortunately the people of Bihar have been wooed by them. Just imagine the fate of this alliance. Firstly, both of them know very well how bitter was their personal relationship before they found a common enemy called Modi. They just hated each other. And both of them know equally well that it is only to satisfy their selfish needs of defeating Modi that they have come together. The day the scare of Modi and his party will subside they will again start fighting like street dogs. None of them have high moral backgrounds, especially Laloo. He is a mean, selfish, communal, corrupt individual. Time has proved this. And it will prove it again. This alliance willnot survive its full period of 5 years till 2020. And even before it breaks apart, there will be so many grudgy points, so many internal disputes between the two major partners. The law and order situation in the state will deteriorate. All the development charts will come crushing down. Bihar will see a downfall in growth and prosperity. There is no doubt about that.
Lastly, the Congress which rejoiced so much over this defeat of the BJP, will quickly learn that the joy was momentary as it returns back to New Delhi's parliament, where it occupies just 8% seats. The struggle will be back to try to compete with the BJP in all national issues, in which it has miserably failed over the last 18 months.
Else nothing will change. This election was from a state and not a national election. However hard the rivals of BJP, may try to over-emphasize the importance of this election result on the national stage, they will keep failing and it will be forgotten within a very small time period from the minds of the public.
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