Uniting in opposition

Bihar result reworks India's political calculus

One of the most recognisable characteristics of the Indian polity since 1967 is that the moment any one party appears to achieve dominance, other parties unite in a bid to restore the balance of power. Indira Gandhi's victory in 1971 was reversed by a unified opposition; Rajiv Gandhi's 1984 landslide precipitated the coalescing of non-Congress forces; and perhaps the flip side of the Bharatiya Janata Party's majority in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections is that it caused even rivals with as much history between them as Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad to join hands. Once that happened, the BJP-led alliance of four parties had a mountain to climb. Facing the combined might of Mr Kumar's Janata Dal (United) or JD(U), Mr Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) suffered a comprehensive defeat, winning less than 60 seats in a 243-strong Assembly, while the "Grand Alliance" of these three parties secured for itself well over two-thirds of the seats. The vote shares, too, confirmed that NDA's loss was largely due to a robust index of opposition unity. True, the BJP's vote share increased significantly in this election, compared to what it was in 2010, but without the JD(U) as an alliance partner, that rise was not enough to overcome the united challenge put up by the JD(U)-RJD-Congress alliance with its higher vote share. Against the NDA's vote share of around 34 per cent, the "Grand Alliance" had a vote share of 42 per cent.

At the national level, the Bihar result will likely lead to a major reconfiguring of political strategy. Certainly, the Congress and other regional political parties will attempt to forge alliances to counter the BJP, as they did in Bihar. But this may not work in many forthcoming elections - definitely not in West Bengal and Kerala, where the BJP is not enough of a threat to dominant local players like the Left or the Trinamool Congress. Assam, where the BJP made major inroads in 2014, might be an exception. The BJP itself will be doing other mathematics: that of the Rajya Sabha. The NDA might not get a majority in the Upper House in the entire term of the current government. Clearly, the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have to reach out to the Opposition if they want to get important laws passed. There is no doubt, therefore, that Mr Modi has been weakened as a result, and will have to treat the parliamentary Opposition with more care than he has needed to do so far.

In any case, given the absence of a chief ministerial candidate, Mr Modi was the face of the BJP in the Bihar election, and he campaigned extensively; the result will dent his political capital, and is a major setback. Certainly, stridency on social issues like reservation and cow slaughter has not helped the BJP. At least in terms of the political calculus, the BJP will have to rethink its hands-off approach while dealing with some of its leaders' irresponsible statements. Much depends on the lessons that the BJP and Mr Modi draw from this setback and the emergence of an alliance of this nature. It is in India's interest that they, and therefore the government, work on conciliating the Opposition so that the government's ability to act on economic reform remains unhindered.