Patna has been simmering with action lately. With elections to the high-stakes, 243-member Bihar Assembly due later this year, tentatively October, those in the fray are just about warming up with soft campaigning pervading every move and statement lately.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar clearly took the lead with a Pragati Yatra launched last year in December itself. However, wresting control of 243 seats after convincing an electorate comprising over 13 crore people is clearly not for beginners in politics. Needless to say neither will it be a cakewalk even for the most seasoned of politicians.
At the centre of the political upheaval is incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Though Kumar has remained relevant in the state with a bull-dog grip on politics for over twenty years now, a few image setbacks lately have brought the frayed ends of the seam under the scanner. Kumar’s frequent and notorious alliance switches have brought his credibility and loyalty under question, apart from being a favourite subject of political memes. Kumar was with RJD and Congress in 2015, before he switched over to BJP in 2017, liaising again with MGB in 2022, he later returned back to NDA in 2024 before the Lok Sabha Polls.
Nitish Kumar remains the poster face of JD(U) but BJP leadership has hinted at the chief minister being decided post polls. This clearly is not expected to go down smoothly with JDU leadership. Power sharing is not the only knot with the potential to complicate the relationship between the two parties. While JDU and RJD backed the caste census, the BJP and RSS opposed it. Given JDU’s reliance on backward caste support, it is unlikely that Nitish Kumar will compromise on his core support base.
Congress goes with RJD alliance
The current assembly elections are a make or break situation for Congress led alliance, especially after Congress’ debacle in recent assembly polls. The Mahagathbandhan, consisting of six opposition parties including the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal are scheduled to meet on April 17 to chalk out the finer details of campaign, seat sharing and poll strategy. The alliance has not yet declared its chief ministerial candidate although it is highly speculated that RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav will be declared as the Chief Ministerial face before the campaign.
In the last Bihar assembly poll results in 2020, the Mahagathbandhan including RJD, Congress and Left parties collectively secured a tally of 110 seats in the 243-member legislative. Congress will individually try to better its last tally of the 19 out of 70 seats it contested in 2020. Who will finally lead the cabinet remains a mystery at best. With Nitish Kumar renowned for switching sides, political analysts expect dramatic turns and switch overs after the poll results.
No cakewalk for BJP either
What makes the Bihar Assembly polls uniquely placed are the equations at stake. BJP, the ruling party at the centre with the support of the incumbent CM Nitish Kumar, aspires to make a significant dent in the sway held by regional parties. An international airport, to be inaugurated later this month by PM Modi, is on the cards as is a metro line covering five stations. However, wooing voters or swaying the electorate might take more than just the infrastructural push.
On Sunday, internal bickering in NDA over seat sharing came to the fore after Hindustani Awam Morcha patron and MP Jitan Ram Manjhi declared at a public rally that HAM will slug it out for at least 35-40 seats. “We’ll have at least 20 MLAs in the 243-member assembly,” he claimed while not holding back his disappointment with NDA.
“It feels as if we are not part of the NDA.” A day later, Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) chief and former Union Minister Pashupati Kumar Paras severed all ties with NDA and announced his exit. “We’ve had an alliance with the BJP and NDA since 2014, but from today there will be no association with NDA,” he said while at an event commemorating Ambedkar Jayanti. RLJP will now contest all 243 assembly seats independently.
Caste remains crucial, yet
The 2023 caste census remains the overshadowing ground reality against which the poll narratives will be woven. Extremely backward classes form 36.01% of the population, while OBC’s 27.13%, Scheduled Castes make 19.65%, collectively making a staggeringly large 82.79% of the voters.
The younger lot of politicos are trying to break the decades-old mold set by caste-based politics, while still not letting go of populist tools and measures. RJD leader Tejashwai Yadav or Jan Suraaj’s Prashant Kishor are trying to weave issues like migration, unemployment and vocational infrastructure into mainstream election campaigns.
There is nothing local about Bihar polls, the state remains a microcosm of all the complexities reflected in India’s national politics. There will be nothing local about the poll results as well, the outcomes will heavily shape India’s larger political landscape in the years to come.
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