(Siddharth Varadarajan is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Public Affairs and Critical Theory, Shiv Nadar University)Arithmetic can help at election time but algebra, in the final analysis, should not be considered a substitute for politics.
The '
maha-gathbandhan' or grand coalition stitched together by Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar - both men were sworn enemies before the Modi wave left them stranded on the same desolate riverbank - had as its primary logic the fact that the National Democratic Alliance won 31 out of Bihar's 40 seats despite polling less (38.8 per cent of votes cast) than what Laloo's Rashtriya Janata Dal (20.1 per cent), Nitish's Janata Dal (United) (at 15.8 per cent) and the Congress (at 8.4 per cent) polled individually.
The BJP's 'take no prisoners' approach towards the opposition since the election provided an urgent political rationale to an alliance whose mathematical logic seemed unimpeachable. If its attempts to undermine and even topple Nitish Kumar as Chief Minister - a move the JD(U) chief averted by handing the keys of government to Jitan Ram Manjhi - pushed Nitish towards Lalu, the Modi government's refusal to grant the Congress the formal status of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha added a national dimension to the quest for "secular" unity. The 10 Bihar Assembly by-elections provided the perfect opportunity for the new alliance to test its strength, even if the constituency-wise arithmetic suggested an uphill fight was likely.
Not only had six of the 10 seats been previously won by the NDA in 2010 but an analysis of votes polled during the 2014 Lok Sabha made it clear that in at least six seats, the BJP and its allies had an advantage even over a unified opposition. (See table below)
With the NDA only winning four seats and the grand coalition picking up six, the results, on the surface at least, suggest the Nitish-Lalu strategy has paid off. The BJP, too, is likely to take some comfort from the fact that it held on to four. But in analyzing what these results portend for Bihar and India, it is important to bear in mind four essential facts.
First, the turnout for the by-elections, at around 44 per cent, is considerably less than what the related parliamentary constituencies registered a few months ago. While it is tempting to see the results as a vote of no-confidence in the Modi government and its policies, the low turnout and the local nature of the contests are reasons to be cautious.
Second, since the cult-like personality of Narendra Modi did not loom large in the by-elections and voters would have acted on local compulsions, the results reflect a reversion to a more 'normal' performance by the BJP. In other words, four out of 10 seats is what the BJP can hope to win in Bihar without the added impetus of the 'Modi wave'. For the party's state leadership, this is surely not good news.
Third, the fact that the actual results in the 10 seats did not reflect the arithmetical advantage that the 2014 elections predicted - the BJP won three seats (Narkatiaganj, Banka and Mohania) where it had polled less than what the RJD/INC/JDU alliance polled individually - tells us that RJD and JD(U) votes do not transfer from one ally to the other that easily. With the state going to the polls in 2015, this reluctance of party supporters to do what their leaders want them to is likely to trouble both Lalu and Nitish.
Fourth, it is worth remembering what happened in 2009, when the NDA (which consisted of JD(U) and BJP at the time) was able to win only five out of the 18 Assembly seats which had by-elections, down from a tally of 12. But by the time the 2010 Assembly elections came around, the NDA comprehensively trounced the opposition. What this means is that by-elections, at least in Bihar, are not necessarily a good barometer for gauging underlying political trends across the state.
As far as the big picture is concerned, it is worth asking how the by-election results will affect the BJP and its opponents nationally.
A clearer sweep by the JDU/RJC/INC combine might have provided a greater incentive for other BJP opponents at loggerheads with each other - especially the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh - to think about a grand alliance. Such an outcome now seems even less likely, especially given the legendary difficulty the BSP has encountered in the past in getting alliance partner votes.
The greatest impact of the Bihar result is likely to be on the BJP as the party realizes that Modi and his message of 'development' do not have the same impact at the state level as they did in the Lok Sabha elections. The seats the party won were with margins much less than those with which it lost. It is possible that pressure will mount within the party and Sangh Parivar for the BJP to go back to the politics of polarization - something which is already evident in Uttar Pradesh. The fact that BJP won both Narkatiaganj and Banka, constituencies where the Congress and RJD, respectively, fielded Muslim candidates suggests a consolidation of Hindu voters, regardless of caste, has taken place in favour of the BJP.
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