Counting of Bihar assembly happened o 10th November and after a day of neck and neck fighting, NDA emerged victorious with 125 seats to the MGB’s 110 in a 243 member assembly. These came as a shock to most political observers (including me) and was opposite to what exit polls had forecast.
First, we deal with why exit polls and forecasters got it wrong.
- As can be seen from the chart above. MGB took a very big lead of 25 seats in the first phase. My input was a 20 seat lead for MGB in phase I. In a 243 seat assembly, a 25 seats lead in phase I was a very big advantage.
- Phase I was a JD(U) stronghold, while Phase II was an even ground and Phase III was an MGB stronghold. And, given how momentum works in multiphase elections, floating voters generally go with the winner and thus it becomes a winner takes all wave. So an MGB win was more or less guaranteed.
- LJP was damaging JD(U) pretty heavily and there was confusion on the ground especially in Phase I, and some BJP voters didn’t vote to JD(U) which led to massive losses of JD(U) in phase I, 6 wins out of 35 contested.
- Some of the reasons for a potential loss where covered in this article
Now let’s discuss the other part — How NDA won the election? Despite saying earlier that NDA won’t win, I will try to analyze to the best of my understanding why it won.
- Massive Popularity of Welfare Schemes — Contrary to popular belief, Modi’s welfare schemes are quite popular. If you talk to poor women, they keep saying chulha, bijli, 5 kilo chawal — referring to the Ujwala yojana, the Saubhagya Yojana and the last one which has been gamechanger is monthly free grains scheme during COVID. This scheme has been the reason there hasn’t been massive outrage from daily wagers despite a long lockdown. Latest addition to the number of schemes is har ghar nal yojana — wherein tap water connections have been provided to all households. I have been in Bihar for last 8 months and have seen this scheme fructify before my eyes.
- Modi Vote — Because of the above schemes, Modi remains popular and his campaign works wonders. Modi did a spectacular push during Phase 2 and 3 and his message was clear as he said unequivocally that Nitish was the CM candidate and there were no second thoughts. He also reminded people about “Jungle Raj” of RJD in every rally of his. As a result, NDA saw an upsurge in Phase 2 and 3 and won the contest.
- Women Voters — There was a higher turnout of women (5% more than men). Women vote has been cultivated by Nitish through his various schemes and prohibition. Modi as well has cultivated his own women voters, through welfare schemes. These women trusted NDA over MGB as has been shown across exit polls.
- Massive Voter Mobilization by NDA — While NDA was unable to get its voters to come out in Phase 1, it used all its might in the last two phases especially in Phase 3 and as result, the Voting percentage in phase 3 was 4.2% higher than Phase 1. NDA was thus able to get its voters who may have been somewhat unhappy with the government, to come out and vote — by using the famed election machinery of the BJP and the fear of the return of jungleraj. As a result, NDA won 67% of seats in Phase 3.
- RJD unable to expand its social base — RJD wasn’t able to expand beyond its traditional Muslim Yadav (MY) base, except for phase 1, where it got the support of EBCs due to an alliance with CPI-ML (extreme left). It got some vote of youth but not enough to tilt the tide in its favour. RJD tried to dissociate with Laloo Yadav by removing him from posters. Also, it ditched the traditional green colour of its posters, to more vibrant colours to showcase a more open, more modern RJD but it was little too late.
- Congress the weak link — If we have to say one reason for the whole loss of MGB, it has to be that they gave too many seats to the weak Congress party. As can be seen in the strike rates chart above, Congress strike rate is the lowest among the major parties. It won 8 fewer seats despite contesting 30 more seats than 2015. As a result, Congress dragged the MGB down with itself. Congress vote share on contested seats was about 33%, which is too low to be competitive and showcases that Congress didn’t deserve the 70 seats. To be fair, Congress didn’t have more than 30–35 candidates and had to give tickets to imported candidates and leaders who lost the general elections in 2019.
All in all, after the first phase, it was an MGB election, they had it in the bag, however, things changed drastically and MGB managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
