The thumping victory of the Grand Alliance in Bihar has stunned the BJP, which will now have to take stock of where it went wrong.
On Sunday, those involved in the campaign – Union Ministers Ananth Kumar and Dharmendra Pradhan and party leaders Ramlal, Bhupendra Yadav and Shrikant Sharma — met party chief Amit Shah separately to exchange notes.
“There was a view that the core social combination of the Grand Alliance in caste terms was higher, and this led to the huge victory. Caste has trumped the development slogan,” a party leader said. “As for the strategy, it was made jointly with the Bihar unit.”
Yet, the result is a setback for Mr. Shah, who was widely seen as a wizard in micro-managing polls.
String of successes
After a string of successes in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir, Mr. Shah acquired a formidable image. He was credited with the BJP’s massive victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. However, if Delhi dented the image, Bihar has brought it under serious strain. There were murmurs of disagreement as the Bihar polls progressed.
Some party leaders felt that the Prime Minister should not have been “over-exposed” in Bihar, as it unnecessarily cast a question on his appeal, the party’s greatest asset.
The results come just before the party’s presidential polls, though this may or may not impact them.
“If one loss here or there would have changed the party chief, the BJP wouldn’t have had a party chief till now,” a BJP leader said days ago.
Another key question the poll outcome has thrown up is about the efficacy of Hindutva as an electoral strategy. While the party’s key leaders talked about an agenda for governance, party workers said, many made issues like beef a core one. The beef campaign — on which the party issued an advertisement towards the end of the polls — did not work.
“At the local level, speeches made by leaders often raked up the beef issue,” a BJP leader said.
This could mean questions being posed on whether the party should be seen as more liberal. Here, the BJP may face some problems from some organisations within the Sangh Parivar for whom Hindutva is part of the core worldview. The RSS also has problems with beef-eating and conversions but has believed that these issues should be taken up without noise.
“There wasn’t any talk on this on Sunday,” a BJP leader said.
BJP general secretary Ram Madhav said: “We will have to accept the people’s mandate. Yes, it was an important election for us and we had fought it with all our might... We will analyse the reasons for the defeat.” Party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said: “In my opinion, this election was not fought on the performance of Narendra Modi.” Asked whether Mr. Shah would resign, Mr. Trivedi said: “I am nobody to answer this question.”
