Bihar Election 2020 Updates: NDA announced as the winner of the Bihar election from 125 seats

There were two battles raging this days- One on the cricket pitch in UAE and the other on the election grounds in Bihar. On both these battlegrounds, there is a lot of brouhaha and the results of both of these battles would be out on 10th November. Now, I know that you are not as interested in the ballot box as you are in bat and ball (cricket). But bear in mind- the masterstrokes of cricket will not make much of a difference in your life but the masterstrokes of politics will! And if you are from Bihar, then your life might change completely- Free vaccine! It is an age old saying- The town is yet not settled, but the dacoits are here to rob it! Similarly, the vaccine is yet not developed, but it is being distributed for free in Bihar. The factories have not yet been set up but lakhs of jobs have been promised. For it is easily to simply put it in a manifesto. Anything for votes, and a blind eye and deaf ears would do the trick later. But this time, even the public is enjoying and basking in the glow of hyperboles. For it only happens once in 5 years that those that cause others to dance to their tunes are ready to dance to the tunes of one finger and the politicians forget about selfish motives and devote themselves to public welfare. At this rate, the elections should take place every year- at least the politicians would be up and about. And just like the excited cricket fans sometimes, these days, the public is seen supporting the other team in Bihar.

Bihar Election

Political Parties and its Consequences

A cursory glance at the players within the Bihar Assembly election. There were very interesting players and teams that were playing in this tournament. Let us begin with the current reigning champion- the triple incumbent CM, Nitish Kumar and his party JDU He has managed to keep the state trophy to himself by making use of the Chanakya-Niti. Analysts believe that just like sledging, some of his techniques are not ethical, but he does know how to stay in the game. On the other hand, there were the "lantern" party that had managed to spread darkness in the state years ago but is now gaining popularity rapidly. The question is whether the people of Bihar would vote again for the lantern party? Or it the entry of Tejaswi Yadav a little too late? To make this tournament more interesting, there is the "pro"gressive "Con"gress party and LJP- led by the Chirag (lamp) of his family. Left parties, the party of Jitan Ram Manjhi, etc etc. In the era of mobile lynching and Whatsapp groups, why would someone fight elections alone? And so, during a display of strength in unity, the parties have all formed alliances. On one hand, there's NDA- and earlier it had been made from BJP, JDU and LJP. But when it had been decided that the Chief Ministerial face of NDA would be our old champion, Nitish ji and along side that, the demand of 42 seats by LJP was rejected and BJP ignored the demand a bit like the B and D media ignores the mistakes of the govt. Then Chirag Paswan said- “This isn't fair" and he declared that he would not liaise with them and instead form his own team and he parted ways with the NDA So, as of now, the NDA consists of BJP, JD(U), Hindustani Awam Morcha and Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP). The biggest competitor of NDA is the other alliance- the Grand Alliance or the Mahagath-bandhan alliance. It consists of our yesteryear winners- RJD, Congress and now, the Left parties. These are the old the old players- let us talk about the new ones now. There is a new alliance by the name of Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA) - not to be confused with public display of affection which consists of Pappu Yadav's Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) and Chandrasekhar Azad's Azad Samaj Party. And then there is Plurals Party of Pusham Priya - trying out their luck going by the opinion polls, the NDA will manage a victory by securing 133-143 seats out 243 seats. But opinion polls are a bit like match predictions- sometimes they click, sometimes they do not. The opinion polls say that this time it will be a close contest in Bihar. And that is because JDU is somewhat just like the CSK now- they're bored of winning. When Bihar was immersed in the darkness of the Junge raj, then a "progressive man" (Vikas Purush) showed a ray of hope. The people were so fed up of the team Lantern that they decided to vote for the "Vikas Purush" and supported him so much that Nitish Kumar has served as from 15 years the CM of Bihar for 3 terms. By the way, "Vikas" has indeed helped shape the career of tons of politicians, right? But the antics of Nitish Kumar were similar to that of a merry go round First, he fought elections along BJP in 2010- and won then on 2015, he quit the side of BJP and sided with Lalu Prasad Yadav (RJD) and won. A lot of individuals complimented this move and hoped that the Vikas Purush would herald a replacement age against divisive politics in Bihar. But this plan of Nitish Kumar flopped just like the Goa plans of people in 2020. There was some conflict in the newly formed friendship of Nitish- Lalu and the Bihar government was about to fall, what next?
 
 

 
Things done in the leadership of Nitish Kumar

Talking about unemployment, the average unemployment in Bihar is more than the national average even today. And private investment is slipping away from the state just like the dreams of "acche din" are slipping away. In the past two years, the economy of Bihar has grown faster than the national average but slumps again in the per capita income domain Barring Patna, more than 35% of the people in the remaining districts of Bihar live in poverty. But Nitish Kumar raised the topic of education in his campaigns and started to list the achievements of his government. A 2018 report of ASER- Annual Status of Education Report, shows that only 41% students in Bihar who can read class 2 level books. And if the schools are in this condition, you can imagine the plight of the university level students- the same old academic delays missing teachers and saga of corruption NITI ayog's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). India Index 2019 shows that Bihar is at number 1 position from the bottom! Be it Covid reporting, doctor to people ratio or the health infrastructure of the state. Bihar maintains its track record; it does not budge at all! This is called consistency! The ladies are neither safe at home, nor outside. Honestly speaking, this is the same story everywhere in the country- be it Bihar or Faridabad. Along with that, Nitish Kumar government neither handled pollution, nor migrant crisis nor the annual flood problem in Bihar. 

The sad part is that despite coming out of the jungle raj, Bihar is still in a bad shape. But the irony is that despite such terrible conditions, the old government might be voted back to power. The government that has already ruled for 15 years might be voted back. How? To explain, the free vaccine which has not yet been developed and jobs while the investment in the state is slipping and furthermore, if you ask for a house to live in, you are reminded that while you might not have a home in Bihar, you have the license to buy land in Kashmir. But the people do understand that these are hyperboles. The bigger fact is that Nitish has been enjoying the TINA factor since years- there is no alternative factor Tejaswi did come down on the ground this year, But the question is how impactful that will be and is he a little too late? CSDS conducted a very interesting survey in 2019- that showed that people do want an RJD government in Bihar but they want Nitish Kumar as the CM face Has this ground reality changed in one year? Furthermore, the rock-solid support of the womenfolk that Nitish Kumar enjoys for putting a ban on the sale of liquor, which has brought down domestic violence in Bihar.

Apart from the not supporting, people still voted Nitish Kumar

The women are unhappy only in the grounds that the law about the sale of liquor should be implemented more stringently for the alcohol is available for home delivery. The womenfolk want this to be stopped as well JDU believes that women are their silent force in this election. But the bigger, final deciding factor- that can even be accurately mapped on pen and paper by some people every year- is caste-based voting that has been very prevalent from the 1990s especially. In 2015, JDU and RJD consolidated the OBC votes through a Gath-bandhan. On the other hand, BJP has been consolidating upper caste votes since years JDU wants to consolidate its hold in the non-Yadav OBCs and RJD -Congress alliance has kept its hold of the Muslims and the Yadavs. This time around, they are even seeking the support of the left. Generally, the politicians ask us to not get into the Maths, but when the issue is about caste maths, then their maths and stats are extremely strong. And this caste based Maths is unchanging like 2+2. It might remain unchanged even this year. On top of that, Nitish Kumar is considered as the default choice for those communities that cannot see their main representation in political circles. So, you might come across a lot of people in Bihar that are going to lambaste Nitish Kumar for not working well but then they are still going to vote for him! Will Bihar vote along the 1990s trend in 2020 again? Or people will have had enough? Will the young voters (that are expected to be more this time) stay away from caste calculations is the biggest question this time in Bihar? The answer to this - whether a yes or a no- cannot be calculated by any expert.

Winning Party

Election in Bihar was held in three phases – 28th October, 3rd November and 7th November 2020. The counting of the votes began on 10th November and was completed early on 11th November. The entire counting took more than 14 hours. There were many twists and turns and alleons of cheating by various parties. National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was announced as the winner of the Bihar elections. The Bihar Legislative Assembly has a total of 243 seats. A majority of 122 is needed to form a government. NDA's victory was announced at 2:57am today morning. They had won 125 seats. The NDA is an alliance of various parties. Out of the 125 seats, BJP won 74, the Janata Dal (United) led by Nitish Kumar with 43, the Vikassheel Insaan Party won 4 seats and Hindustani Awam Morcha Party (Secular) won 4 seats. Now the NDA will form the government. The opposition Mahagath-bandhan is composed of Rashtriya Janata Dal & Congress. The alliance is led by RJD's young leader Tejashwi Yadav. Mahagath-bandhan won 110 seats. However, the RJD was the single-largest party with 75 seats. The Congress contested 70 seats but won only 19. Ram Vilas Paswan’s son’s Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party won just one seat.
 

Image Source- Google | Image by- Oneindia