Powered by a stupendous performance by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar on Wednesday got a thumping victory in the 2010 assembly elections in Bihar.
The enormity of the majority that Kumar has got can be guaged by the numbers: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) now holds 85 per cent seats in the 243 member Bihar Assembly.
The JD(U)-BJP combine has won 206 seats, of which JD(U) has won 115. BJP, on the other hand, bagged 91 of the 102 seats it contested on. This is BJP’s best-ever performance in Bihar. Before these elections, BJP had 55 and JD(U) 88 MLAs in the assembly.
These elections also mark the worst-ever performance of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). It managed to secure only 22 seats — a loss of 32 seats compared to the previous polls when it had 54 MLAs in the assembly. In fact, the entire Opposition has been reduced to 37 seats, with Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) managing to squeeze in only three seats, the Congress bagging four seats, six going to independent candidates and one each to Communist Party of India and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha.
Prasad’s wife and former chief minister of the state, Rabri Devi, who was the leader of the Opposition in the previous assembly, was defeated twice over — in both Raghopur and Sonepur constituencies.
| WHERE THEY STAND Total seats: 243 | ||
| Party | Won | Change |
| JD(U) | 115 | 27 |
| BJP | 91 | 36 |
| RJD | 22 | -32 |
| IND | 6 | -4 |
| Congress | 4 | -5 |
| LJP | 3 | -7 |
| Others | 2 | ---- |
NDA conceded that even its top leaders were not expecting this margin of victory. One of the leaders close to Nitish said: “We were sure about the victory, but not this. This is huge, this is massive. It proved one point very effectively that development is now a major issue in state.”
Nitish said: “We owe a very big ‘thank you’ to the people. This is a victory not just for us, but the people of Bihar. They proved that Bihar can not only talk about development, but also take a big step. I promise that we will continue to work harder for Bihar.”
RJD and Congress, on the other hand, accepted defeat and congratulated Nitish. RJD supremo Lalu Prasad said: “I congratulate Nitish on his success. However, this mandate is a big mystery and we will continue to analyse it.” Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday said the results indicated that the party would have to rebuild itself from the scratch. “As far as our party is concerned, we did not have much hope. We took a deliberate decision not to be in alliance with other parties. Results obviously indicate that our party has to start from the scratch to rebuild itself and that is what we plan to do,” Gandhi said.
However, BJP’s thumping victory has also given rise to anxieities about the smooth functioning of the government. According to some analysts, BJP will now demand an equal say in government matters. Kumar’s JD(U) now is just 8 seats away from simple majority. So, theoretically, he can shrug the BJP off and go his independent way anytime — the way Naveen Patnaik did in Orissa. However, both the parties have denied any such possibility. A Nitish loyalist said: “It’s a fact that Nitish does not like Congress. Moreover, BJP has not yet done such a thing that he would break up with it. However, you can never predict about the future.”
On the governance front, Bihar can now expect to see a faster pace of infrastructure building. Two priorities for Kumar are going to be augmenting the power situation in the stae and setting the Public Distribution system right. He will also beckon private sector industry to invest in the state and work towards improving agricultural productivity.
Kumar said the first priority would be to steer a law through the new assembly to amend the Prevention of Corruption Act. The amendment will give the state the right to seize property of those found guilty of corruption and turn these into schools. the state also has plans to beef up the public sector health infrastructure.
