The Bihar election results announced earlier this month revealed a decisive victory for Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s ‘Mahagathbandhan’ (Grand Alliance), while the BJP and its allies were soundly defeated. Pranav Gupta offers an overview of the results and analyses the likely contributing factors as well as the longer-term implications of the victory

Gupta, Pranav

LSE Research Online

2015-11-25Bihar 2015: Grand victory for the Mahagathbandhan,debacle for the BJPblogs.lse.ac.uk /southasia/2015/11/25/bihar-2015-grand-victory-for-the-mahagathbandhan-debacle-for-the-bjp/The Bihar election results announced earlier this month revealed a decisive victory for Nitish Kumar andLalu Prasad Yadav’s ‘Mahagathbandhan’ (Grand Alliance), while the BJP and its allies were soundlydefeated. Pranav Gupta offers an overview of the results and analyses the likely contributingfactors as well as the longer-term implications of the victory.Bihar continued the ongoing trend of giving decisive verdicts as the Grand Alliance of RashtriyaJanata Dal (RJD), Janata Dal (United) (JDU) and the Congress won 178 out of the 243 seats in thestate. The BJP faced a second successive defeat after Delhi and was reduced to just 53 seats. Itsallies – the Lok Janshakti Party, the Hindustani Awam Morcha and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party won just 5 out ofthe 86 seats that they had contested. In this article, I would provide a brief overview of the result and then re-look athow the probable factors I identified as polling began played out in the election. At the end, I will briefly commentupon some broader long term implications.In terms of seats, the three parties which formed Grand Alliance to contest the election this year surpassed their2014 Lok Sabha election performance. The NDA had led the Grand Alliance parties on 92 seats in 2014. The primereason for this is the rise in the vote share gap between both alliances from 5.5 percentage points to 7.3 percentagepoints. This has occurred despite a decline in the absolute vote share of both alliances. The Grand Alliance’s voteshare this time was 44.1 percent as compared to 44.3 percent in 2014. Similarly, the NDA’s vote share came downby close to 5 percentage points from 38.8 percent to 34.1 percent. The NDA suffered a vote share decline despitethe addition of a new partner.Table 1: Party-wise performance Lok Sabha 2014 and Vidhan Sabha 2015Source: Election Commission of IndiaThe magnitude of the BJP’s defeat is such that it cannot be merely considered to be an outcome of adversearithmetic. The BJP won 49 seats in the 2010 Assembly election and the NDA had a higher vote share than theGrand Alliance in 2014. The NDA managed to retain only 22 of their ‘stronghold’ seats. The 27 seats lost by the BJPmainly went to the RJD (14) and the Congress (9).1/3This indicates that the BJP lost its core seats in the state. Among urban voters, the NDA’s lead was much lower thanwhat they would have expected. The Alliance managed to win 17 out of the 30 seats urban seats in the state. Butamong rural voters, the NDA lagged far behind as the Grand Alliance had a lead of more than 9 percentage pointsin terms of votes. The failure to emerge as the single largest party in the house (in terms of seats) is a major setbackfor the BJP which was hoping to at least establish itself as the principal player of Bihar politics. I would now discusssome factors which proved to be decisive.First, the forces of Mandal and Kamandal did influence the election and it seems that the latter was clearlyoverpowered by the former. The Grand Alliance registered a decisive victory not only because it was able tomaintain its existing social coalition but also because it managed to fragment support among social groups leaningtowards the BJP. The NDA was hoping to counter the Grand Alliance’s Muslim-Yadav alliance through aconsolidation of upper caste and Dalit votes. However, the much-discussed Dalit consolidation for the NDA nevermaterialised. The alliance could manage to win only 7 out of the 38 seats (BJP – 5 out of 21; Allies – 2 out of 17)reserved for Scheduled Castes in Bihar. The vote share gap between the NDA and the Grand Alliance was relativelyhigher in SC reserved seats. While the NDA led among the Paswans, the Mahadalit vote got fragmented betweenmultiple players. As per the Lokniti-CSDS Post Poll survey, 51 percent of the Paswans voted for the NDA but thiswas much lower than 2014 when more than two third of the Paswans had supported the alliance. Similarly, only 30percent of the Mahdalits voted for the NDA which was much lower than the Lok Sabha election. Further study isrequired important to understand what led to this last moment fragmentation of Mahadalit vote as the BJP seemedset to consolidate support among them till September.Much has been written on how Kamandal/Hindutva element in the BJP’s campaign backfired and became a causefor the party’s loss in Bihar. I believe that the party lost despite it rather than because of it. Prime Minister Modistarted talking about Nitish and Lalu’s minority reservation promises to counter the Alliance leaders on MohanBhagwat’s reservation remarks only during the later phases of the election. It is not as if the contest was close untilthen as the BJP trailed massively even in the first two phases.  The absence of a Mahadalit consolidation in favourof the BJP made the question of Extremely Backward Castes (EBCs) being pivotal almost irrelevant. If the BJP hadmanaged to gather high support among the Mahadalits, then the voting decision of the lower Other Backward Castes(OBCs) could have determined the election. But this group, which forms close to a quarter of the state’s electorate,is extremely heterogenous and voted in a fragmented manner. The NDA enjoyed a lead of just 8 points amongthem, winning 43 percent of votes. This was 10 percentage points lower than 2014 and partially explains why theparty lost so decisively.Second, such an election victory would not have been possible without a strong transfer of support between parties.For the first time since 1990, Kurmis and Yadavs in Bihar voted on the same side. Lalu Prasad Yadav and NitishKumar managed to ensure a transfer of support despite mutual distrust among the cadre. Prof. Sanjay Kumar andShreyas Sardesai estimate using survey data that 60 percent of the Yadavs voted for the JDU in the constituenciesthat it contested. The transfer of Kurmi votes was better as the Grand Alliance’s vote share among them was almostequivalent in seats contested by both RJD and the JDU. The two parties were able to gradually change the negativeperception about their alliance. This was evident in the post-poll survey as more than four out of ten voters said thatthere was nothing wrong in the coming together of both parties, this was almost 10 percentage points higher thanthe pre-poll perception. Still, what is interesting is that there was no drastic change in the negative perception of LaluPrasad Yadav. Even in the post-poll survey, 44 percent of the voters said that they disliked him. Nitish’s positiveimage among the voters probably provided a counterbalance and it helped the Grand Alliance to win over swingvoters. 27 percent of the Grand Alliance voters said that they would have voted differently if Nitish would not havebeen the Chief Ministerial candidate.Third, it would wrong to look at this election only through the prism of caste and religious identities. The GrandAlliance would not have been able to win such a massive mandate through social mobilisation alone. Nitish Kumar’spositive performance appraisal clearly helped the alliance. Close to 80 percent of Bihari voters were satisfied withthe work done by his state government. The level of satisfaction with the central government was marginally lower2/3at 72 percent. As in Delhi, the ‘Modi magic’ was unable to counter a popular regional leader. Does this indicate theemergence of divergent voting patterns in state level and national elections?needs to revisit its strategy of fighting state elections. It was unable to even fulfil its second best scenario ofemerging as the single largest party and establishing itself as the central force of Bihar politics. Is it that the BJP’spromise to voters in the state has become limited to the presence of cooperative central government and a helpfulPrime Minister? The BJP has been unable to convince voters about the impact of having the same party at the stateand the centre. It must be able to show what difference the party’s presence at the centre made to the developmentof Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat, which were under its rule during the UPA era. Fighting as the centralincumbent it also needs to show some evidence of results on the promises of 2014.The JDU and the RJD now need to enter into governance mode and ensure that their unlikely reunion remainsstable. Nitish Kumar will have to remain focused and ensure that no controversy diverts him from the agenda ofgovernance. Despite any internal issues arise, the alliance is likely to survive as both parties are unlikely to have anyalternative. In case of a midterm election, the BJP would start well ahead as the favourite.The guest list at Nitish Kumar’s swearing in ceremony clearly indicates the future course of national politics. TheBJP’s rise to power started from the states as its Chief Ministers consolidated support in their respective statesthrough a good performance. The opposition to Narendra Modi at the moment also seems to be coming from thestates. In the near future one could expect greater political coordination among Non Congress-Non BJP ChiefMinisters with complete support from a weakened Congress to take on the larger common nemesis – NarendraModi and the BJP.On 9 November Pranab Gupta participated in the South Asia Centre’s Global Hangout Discussion with expertsincluding Giles Veniers, Jeffrey Witsoe, Manisha Priyam, Milan Vaishnav, Neelanjan Sircar, Pranav Gupta, SarthakBagchi. View the event video here.Cover image credit: flickr/Goutam Roy CC BY-SA 2.0Note:  This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the South Asia @ LSE blog, nor of theLondon School of Economics. Please read ourcomments policy before posting.About the AuthorPranav Gupta is currently pursuing MSc. in Political Science and Political Economy at the LondonSchool of Economics and Political Science. Previously he worked as a Reseach Assistanton the Lokniti Programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi.Copyright © 2016 London School of Economics3/3

Bihar 2015: grand victory for the Mahagathbandhan, debacle for the BJP

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