Bihar Results: The result of political miscalculations

JUNAID MALIK

The stellar performance of the NDA in the recent elections of Bihar have turned topsy turvy all the exit poll surveys and political Pandits hanging their heads down.The major share holder remained the BJP who had seen much debacle in assembly elections in Delhi,Maharashtra,Jharkhand despite winning 303 parliamentary seats in 2019 elections.The JDU has certainly received the set back with just 43 wins out of 115 seats that it contested.The BJP certainly has got the lion’s share with 74 win out of 121 seats that it contested as against 53 out of 157 in 2015.
Though Tejasvi with his electrifying and massive campaigning for Mahagathbandhan emerged as the single largest party but away from the winning mark to form the government.Despite of his charisma and tilt of majority of voters for him,the seat sharing formula gave the hitting dent to him.The congress was supposed to contest on 48 seats as against 70 it contested and won only 19 proved as one of the major debacle for the grand alliance.

The conglomerate of opposition didn’t learn the lesson from earlier elections of states as well as the national elections.The NDA got 39 seats and congress had to be contended on just one seat out of 40 seats in 2019 parliamentary elections.
The bitter experiences of other states were not rectified this time too.It has to be accepted in the current scenario that congress is a small entity in the state elections with few exceptions.In 2017 Akhilesh yadav aligned with congress.The congress contested 105 seats out of 403 and the winning score shrunk just to single digit of 7 seats.The political fissures and arm twisting gave 70 seats to congress in Bihar but could Manage only 19 seats to win in the battle.
Other parties like CPI,CPI (M) CPI (ML) performed better than congress.AIMIM led by Assadudin owaisi showed excellent results winning 5 seat but not before facing the criticism and sharp attack from congress on allegations of cutting down the secular votes.He is being called with the sobriquet of “vote katwa” ( vote cutter) and even B team of BJP by none other than Leader of opposition in lok sabha Adhiranjan choudhary.
Implications
Bihar elections has once again catapult the invincible image of prime minister Narendra Modi who had seen sharp criticism even from his admirers for not managing the crisis of COVID-19 with migrant laborers being the worst effected by the pandemic who were seen hungry and bare footed covering miles of journey on foot with their families.The opposition more particularly RJD led by Tejasvi yadav promising 10 lac jobs and massive industrialization in Bihar that would prevent the migrant poor laborers going out of Bihar in search of jobs and livelihood.Modi has once again been successful to brush under the carpet the major failure of government with regards to China annexing our land in Ladakh.
The prime minister said in his address to nation that China hasn’t captured an inch of land in Ladakh but defense minister accepted on the floor of house that 3800 Sqkm of territory has been illegally annexed by China in dokhlam region.The opposition couldn’t grill government even on this integral question but NDA led by prime minister narendra modi well fanned the message to give free corona vaccines to people even if it had yet not been made if it comes to power.
The grand success of BJP in Bihar could help it a lot in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu where elections are due next year.Although BJP has a strong grip in Hindi heart land despite of losing its allies but the formidable win can help it to have major allies in south as well.The opposition is fragmented with no alternative to give major dent to the invincible image of Modi and has miserably failed to crop joint strategy to pull down the electoral graphs of NDA led by BJP.

(The author is Freelance Columnist and can be reached at malikjunaid22@gmail.com , 7006297586)