India: Nitish Kumar-led alliance wins big in Bihar

Patna: Prime Minister Narendra Modi suffered a heavy defeat in Bihar’s state election Sunday, galvanising the opposition and emboldening rivals in his own party.

The Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Grand Secular Alliance posted a landslide victory in a crushing blow to Modi’s high-pitched election campaign, which brought him to the state many times in the past few weeks.

While the alliance comprising the Janata Dal United (JD-U), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of Lalu Prasad Yadav and the Congress won 178 seats, the National Democratic Alliance led by the prime minister’s party could win only 58 seats in the 243-member Bihar assembly. The NDA comprises the BJP, Lok Janshakti Party, Hindustani Awam Morcha and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party.

Kumar thanked the people of Bihar for their overwhelming support soon after trends showed his alliance was winning. “I thank the people of Bihar for the overwhelming support and blessings for the Grand Alliance,” Kumar tweeted. He also congratulated the people of Bihar for the huge turnout, saying the spirit and power of democracy has won.

This is being described as a personal defeat for Modi as he was the visible face of the campaign, leading it even before the poll process was formally launched. Modi addressed 30 election rallies in the state — the most by any prime minister in state elections.

‘Not PM’s defeat’

The BJP chief, Amit Shah, along with half the Modi cabinet camped in Bihar for more than a month, traversing through every part of the state and launching an extensive poll campaign to seek the support of the masses.

The loss in Bihar will also hamper Modi’s push to pass economic reforms, because he needs to win most state elections in the next three years to gain full control of parliament.

“We are indeed disappointed over the poll outcome, but this is not the defeat of the prime minister. Had this been so, why would large crowds always attend his election rallies?” asked BJP parliamentarian Sushil Kumar Singh, adding his party failed to convert people’s support into votes.

He defended the party’s decision of not declaring its chief ministerial candidate: “It’s not always that every decision of the party proves wrong. There was no dearth of chief ministerial faces in the party, but we decided to fight the polls on the PM’s face under a strategy, although it failed,” he explained.

The election had become a matter of prestige for both Modi and Kumar. While Modi had the compulsion to prove his popularity, the Kumar-Lalu duo faced the challenge to win the polls to stay afloat in national politics after they were routed in last year’s Lok Sabha polls where the RJD-JD-U together won just six out of state’s 40 Lok Sabha seats.

It was the most expensive state election ever fought by the BJP, with more than 90 top party figures addressing 600 rallies over the last six weeks.

Modi tweeted that he had called to congratulate Kumar.

Winners

Tejashwi Yadav, Tej Pratap Yadav, sons of RJD chief Lalu Prasad
Jitan Ram Manjhi, former Bihar chief minister
Nand Kishore Yadav, leader of opposition in Bihar assembly
Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, considered holding two positions in the JD-U
Bijendra Yadav, senior colleague of Nitush Kumar
Anant Singh, gangster-turned-politician

  
Losers

Uday Narayan Chaudhary, Bihar assembly speaker
Pashupati Kumar Paras, brother of LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan
Anil Kumar Sadhu, son-in-law of Ram Vilas Paswan
Santosh Kumar Suman, son of Jitan Ram Manjhi
Brishen Patel, former minister
Nitish Mishra, son of former Congress CM Jaganaath Mishra and former minister

With inputs from Reuters