Journalism of Courage
As the buzz generated by Delhi election results begins to slowly recede, with the new BJP government in the national capital settling in, the attention is slowly shifting towards the next big event on the poll calendar: the showdown in Bihar. Though still several months away, things are starting to happen in the crucial battleground between the Opposition Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The ruling alliance will kick things off when Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a public meeting in Bhagalpur on Monday (February 24). Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to release another tranche of financial aid for farmers under PM Kisan Samman Nidhi and launch other development projects.
However, all eyes will be on the political content of the PM’s speech and the tone that he sets. Just over two decades ago, when Bihar prepared for another election, BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee had also addressed a rally in which he managed to capture the anti-government mood over a deteriorating law-and-order situation. That election marked the end of Lalu Prasad’s rule and since then, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has not won an election and returned to power.
Though the political landscape has transformed nationally in the past two decades, and it is an NDA government that is in power in the state and the Centre, the “lawlessness” of those years — encapsulated by the term “jungle raj” — is still evoked by the RJD’s political opponents to make their case to voters to not bring it back. Whether Modi follows the same script and targets the RJD over it, will indicate how the BJP specifically and the NDA at large will shape its campaign message.
Then, there is the issue of seat-sharing. Though it is too early to get into who will contest how many constituencies and where, the NDA parties have already started the assessment process on the ground. Santosh Singh reports that the JD(U) has drawn up a list of 125 seats it wants to fight, 20 of which its ally BJP currently holds or unsuccessfully contested five years ago. The JD(U) had a poor strike rate last time — 115 contested and 43 won, which it blames on Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party — and whether the BJP will agree to such a demand is a big question.
The BJP, however, is likely to negotiate from a position of strength given that it had a far superior strike rate five years ago — 74 of 110 constituencies — and has been able to shake off the disappointment of the Lok Sabha elections with three straight Assembly election victories.
For the RJD, which was the single-largest party last time and came so close to returning to power, this will be a litmus test after the disappointment of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, though it managed to have the highest vote share and bring down the NDA’s seat tally to 31 out of 40 constituencies.
RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, seen as relatively inexperienced five years ago, is the unquestioned leader and CM face this time around and has been touring the state to get the party ready for the contest later this year. The RJD, as Deeptiman Tiwary wrote in this week’s Heartland Pulse column, is looking to go beyond its image as just a “Muslim-Yadav” party and is trying to reach out to the Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) and Dalits.
Apart from getting its caste arithmetic right, the party’s messaging will likely pivot around jobs, which resonated with voters last time around, and promises such as monthly handouts for women from poor families under the “Mai Bahin Maan Yojana” and 200 units of free electricity. As recent election results have illustrated, voters now are more transactional and pragmatic than ever before and while caste and community keep influencing voter choices, the politics of handouts as well as hope will keep playing a central role in Indian politics.
But how the Mahagathbandhan fares may ultimately come down to the Congress’s performance and if the alliance manages to be more cohesive than what the Congress, the AAP, and the Samajwadi Party managed in Haryana and Delhi.
Last time, the Congress bit off more than it could chew and its poor strike rate — it won 19 of 70 seats — let the alliance down. This time, the RJD is most likely to push back harder on similar demands. Like in other parts of the country, the Congress has major organisational weaknesses, as Asad Rehman reported recently, and in successfully overcoming these difficulties lies the answer to whether it will mount an effective challenge this time.
(Correction & clarification: An earlier version of this article incorrectly mentioned that the PM will visit Bihar on Sunday. It should have been Monday. The error is regretted)
