Why Bihar Elections Was Unique In The History Of India

By Masood Ali Mir

10 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org

From the last six months Bihar is everywhere and anywhere in the Indian print and electronic media. The simple reason for this omnipresence has been the state assembly elections. Now when the elections are over and Nitish Kummar led “Mahagathbandan” with 178 seats, is all set to form the government. Let us have a look at the Bihar elections and the distinguished features which has made it unique in the history of electoral politics of Independent India.

As the coalition politics has dawned in the Indian politics both at centre and state, there was no political party whether at national level or state level willing to go for elections on individual level. So there was a great stress on the alliance building. There has been a lot of making and unmaking of alliances in this election. Initially, the Janata Parivar (six Party Alliance)-Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (secular), Janata Dal (United), Rashtriya Janata Dal, Indian National Lol Dal, Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya) announced to fight elections jointly under the Nitish Kumar’s leadership which was joined by the Indian National Congress (INC) and National Congress Party too. Latter the group was left by all except JD (U), RJD and INC. On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led DNA fought this elections alongside the Lok Janshakti Party, Rashtriya Lok Samata Party and Hindustani Awam Mitcha. Besides, these two big alliances the social Secular Morcha, Left Front and some individual parties too participated in this election.

In terms of elections campaign independent India has never seen such a high voltage election campaign for any state assembly election. Contrary to the developmental issues and good governance which usually used to be the main attention of election campaign, the hate politics dominated this election. Modi’s “Three Idiots”, Amit Shah's “Pakistan Celebrations”, VK Singh’s “Dog” remarks for the murder of two Dalit boys in Faridabad, Messa Bharti’s “Char Chantay our Panch Chantay” etcetera dominated the election campaign. India had never seen such a dirty politics as we saw during this election. It brought the Indian democracy to its lowest ebb.

The unpredictability of this election was such that even the opinion polls, TV channels and exit polls failed to predict the results. It was only Yugender Yadav who proved right in his analysis that Bihar has voted for Grand Alliance and against Modi.

Although, the Prime Minister Modi announced 125 thousand crore package and addressed 30 rallies still NDA was defeated and defeated also in every second seat in which they led during Lok Sabha election. The Grand Alliance not only managed to defeat the NDA but also managed to get two-third majority. The main reasons for NDA’s defeat are:

(I) BJP’s national top brass over shadowed the local leadership of Bihar. Sushil Modi and other local leaders of the Front were hardly visible anywhere. Modi and Amit Shah were everywhere making it more national and less local. This strategy alienated the grass root level worker.

(II) The rising intolerance all over India too went against the NDA and in favour Grand Alliance as the Congress leader has declared the result as “The victory of unity over divisiveness, humility over arrogance and love over hate.”

(III) The hard work pays, so paid to the Grand Alliance the hard work of Nitish Kumar and his popularity. Nitish Kumar the chief ministerial candidate started his “Har Gar Dastak”(door to door) campaign on July 2, 2015 much before the other parties. He hired Prashant Kishore as the key election strategist. The victory is a reward for the performing Chief Minister.

(IV) RSS chief Mohan Bagvat's reservation remarks, “Need to have rethink of caste based reservation” proved fatal, as the social composition of society is like OBC’s and EBC’s 51 per cent, Dalits and Mahadalits 16 per cent, Muslims 17 per cent and the upper caste is only is 15 per cent . On the other hand Grand Alliance propagated the developmental slogans like “phir say aik bar ho, Bihar mai bahaar ho.” Hence the social equation worked in favour of Nitish, Lalu and Congress.

(V) The urban area voters this time did not show much enthusiasm. It is said that BJP gets major support from the upper middle class. Nitish and Lalu have their much support base in the rural areas. Hence, the high turnout in villages supported their cause and the low turnout of urban areas haunted the NDA.

(VI) The BJP government is in power from last seventeen months. The promises of Modi are turning out hoax. He has delivered hardly anything for the people. He is busy in foreign trips and is hardly paying any attention to farmer suicides, rising prices, growing intolerance and to poor of this country. Biharis have rejected “Modism” hence voted for change that is good governance and development.

The important feature of democracy is that the power resides with a common man. The high voltage election campaign hardly matters when there is less delivery on governance and developmental front. The common man of Bihar has used the power of ballot for his betterment, better governance and common brotherhood.

Long live Democracy.

The author teaches Political Science at Government Model Higher Secondary School Bijbehara and can be mailed at [email protected]