Bihar Assembly elections | Quiet satisfaction in BJP over results

NDA managed to keep its support base with caste arithmetic and social coalition intact

BJP supporters celebrate their party’s win during the counting day of Bihar Assembly polls, in Patna on November 10, 2020.

As BJP and its ally in Bihar, the Janata Dal (U) watched the results through a slow counting day for the Assembly polls, there was a quiet air of satisfaction that the NDA had managed to keep together its support base and was on track to form the government in the State.

Mindful of the fact that the BJP had celebrated too early in 2015 on result day, only to be disappointed later, party leaders were very subdued although workers thronged the national headquarters in Delhi.

Bihar Assembly election result | All quiet at party offices

Senior leaders of the BJP told

The Hindu that the NDA’s preservation of the social coalition that had repeatedly brought it to power was a matter of satisfaction to the party, and justified the decision not to go it alone in the polls, although Prime Minister Narendra Modi remained the most popular leader in the State.

No loss to Tejashvi

“The point to note is that the NDA voter more or less remained with us, and to win,

Tejashwi Yadav needed not just his Muslim-Yadav combine but a chunk of NDA vote too, which he didn’t get,” said a senior Bihar BJP leader.

“Much of our score is attributed to Prime Minister Modi who is now both the enabler and provider model of leader,” said a senior BJP leader. “The enabler leader is one who empowers marginal communities to get a voice within a system and with non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits voting for the BJP repeatedly in U.P. and in Bihar, Prime Minister Modi has proved that he is an enabler. In terms of the provider model, there too, through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) on welfare schemes for the poor, and emphasis on infrastructure like roads and electricity, he has become the provider of development and welfare,” said the source, adding that the welfare programmes helped mitigate some of the hardships of the reverse migration in the state during the COVID19 lockdown.

There was a strong feeling that the much bigger strike rate of the BJP compared to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s party was a reflection of the popularity of Prime Minister Modi which far outstripped that of Mr. Kumar.

Nitish to continue

The one question that every BJP leader did answer with alacrity was that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will continue in his post if the NDA secures victory.

“Our senior leader Amit Shahji and others have said that Nitish Kumar will be the chief minister of an NDA-led government whatever the seat situation,” said State unit chief Sanjay Jaiswal, a decision that will be a hardsell to party cadre.

There was, however, also a feeling that the JD(U) was hard done by due to the strategy of Chirag Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) who put up 137 candidates mainly against the JD(U).

“Of these, 70 candidates were upper caste and eroded some of the NDA votes from being cast in favour of JD(U). There will have to be a reckoning on the number of seats lost by the JD(U) because of this,” said a source.

The caste arithmetic and support base, always a delicate structure in a politically charged State like Bihar, has remained more or less intact for the NDA. As counting went into late night, that was a thought that the alliance held on to.