 "Bihar, BJP, Sushil Kumar Modi, Elections")
It was as if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had not learnt any lessons from its defeat in Delhi. The same faces managed the elections and made similar mistakes.
The signs were there that infighting in distribution of tickets and the dominance of people from outside Bihar in decision making was being resented by BJP’s local leadership as well as rank and file. But few had the courage to give the bad news to those at the top.
Today, party leader P Muralidhar Rao called for action against party MPs Shatrughan Sinha and RK Singh for their dissent. Sinha had complained that those managing the election campaign were living in five star hotels and were disconnected from grassroots workers while Singh had flagged the issue of widespread corruption in ticket distribution. The allegations had more than a ring of truth. But Rao demanding action against the two, who are at best marginal players in Bihar politics, is clearly an attempt to deflect attention from those who are really responsible for the defeat.
The script is similar to the Delhi debacle where the BJP found a scapegoat in Kiran Bedi, when the intra-party malaise ran deeper and was exposed as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was faced with a credible alternative in Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party and not a discredited Congress and its leader Rahul Gandhi. There is absolutely nothing, that the BJP central leadership has done since the Delhi defeat to put its house in order in the city state. And, there are enough people in the BJP who believe nothing will change after the Bihar defeat.
Here are some reasons why BJP lost Bihar:
1) The index of opposition unity and failure of kamandal: the moment RJD, JD (U) and Congress got together for the assembly by-polls to 10 seats in August-September 2014, the writing was on the wall. Their cumulative vote share was greater than that of the National Democratic Alliance and they won six of the 10 seats. This was repeated in 2015 assembly polls. The three have together polled 42 per cent votes, while NDA polled 35 per cent votes. Moreover, allies, given 83-seats, performed abysmally winning only 7.
The BJP tried to overcome the caste configuration of the ‘Mahagatbandhan’ with Hindu consolidation by invoking the beef controversy and that firecrackers would be burst in Pakistan if it were to lose in Bihar. The effort to polarize on religious lines bombed, while Mandal politics held its own. The cohesion between Prasad and Nitish Kumar also surprised the BJP.
2) BJP’s mythmaking: the election was run by Shah and BJP’s Bihar leader Sushil Modi. There was widespread disaffection among other leaders. The claims of a 600,000 strong cadre and 243 vehicles for each constituency were for the media, when the party didn’t have such effective numbers on the ground. Workers didn’t take the central command structure kindly. They resented not having access to senior leaders but only to those manning call centres. Decision making was entrusted to outsiders. Senior leaders were upset that Amit Shah and Sushil Modi called the shots. Some, like CP Thakur and Ashwini Choubey, were placated by offering their sons party tickets.
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3) ‘Bahri versus Bihari’: the ‘outsider’ campaign stuck, particularly as it was just Modi and Shah whose hoardings were put up and only as an afterthought were other leaders given any space. BJP’s anti-Yadav consolidation and the fear of ‘jungle raj-part two’ consolidated the Yadavs behind Laloo Prasad. BJP didn’t put up a chief ministerial candidate, while its rival had a credible face in Nitish Kumar.
4) Mohan Bhagwat’s reservation comments: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat’s comments that there should be a review of the reservation policy, it would seem, not only lost the BJP the votes of the backward sections it had got in 2014 Lok Sabha during the Modi wave but also of the Extremely Backward Castes, which it had hoped will vote for the party.
5) Diminishing support: By the evidence of the crowds in his rallies, Prime Minister Modi continues to remain popular. But those crowds didn’t seem to have translated into votes. Instead, BJP and its allies have lost over three per cent vote share in Bihar since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, and this when it added Jitan Ram Manjhi’s party to the list of its allies in Bihar. For many in Bihar, the development brought by Nitish Kumar was there to see but the one promised by Narendra Modi was still in the realm of possibility. Inflation, particularly the rising prices of 'dal', might have also hurt.
The only silver lining, if there is one amid the rout, is that the BJP has for the first time fought an election in Bihar on its own. It now has identified cadre in at least 157 of the 243 constituencies. Moreover, it would be going into the 2019 Lok Sabha elections without the anti-incumbency of its state government in Bihar and could still hope to repeat its 2014 Lok Sabha performance, where the party and its allies won 31 of the 40-seats.
