Six reasons why the BJP might win Bihar elections

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah said at a rally in Patna on Monday that the National Democratic Alliance would win a majority of the seats that went to polls in the first two phases earlier this month in Bihar. Shah claimed the party would win 28 to 32 of the 49 seats from Bihar Election Phase-I, and 20 to 24 of the 32 seats voted for in Phase-II.

Senior BJP leaders are convinced that its alliance will surprise naysayers, just like the party did with its performance in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha elections, and then in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana Assembly polls. Indeed, they insist the party will turn in an equally splendid performance in the remaining three phases of voting in Bihar.

Voters wait in queue to cast their vote during second phase of Bihar elections at Gaya

So, what explains the BJP’s confidence? Here are six reasons why the party is so gung-ho about its performance:

1) Cadre and resources: The BJP claims to have over 600,000 workers, 10 workers each for the more than 60,000 polling booths. The five-phased polling also gives it the advantage of re-deploying these workers from areas where polling is over. Its membership drive had notched up 9.6 million members in Bihar — a seventh of Bihar’s 68 million electorate. Add to this an estimated 70,000 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers from across the country and enormous resources at the command of the alliance. This cadre strength is helping the BJP not only mobilise its voters more efficiently on polling days but more effectively spread its message to the remotest of villages. In contrast, the Grand Alliance is a rag-tag coalition with little synergy. Even Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal insiders speak of workers that are liable to switch loyalties for reasons other than political commitment.

2) Haryana model and anti-Lalu vote: The BJP believes its ‘jungle raj’ campaign has struck a chord. Only the Muslims, Yadavs and Kurmis, who account for 35 per cent, are with the ‘Grand Alliance’ while the remaining 65 per cent will vote for BJP-led alliance, it believes. The BJP calls this its ‘Haryana model’, where it had succeeded in consolidating all other castes against the dominant Jats in the 2014 Assembly polls.

3) Perfect patchwork of caste alliances: BJP strategists think they have stitched together a perfect alliance of castes, with the 15 per cent upper castes supporting the BJP, eight per cent Kushwahas behind their leader — Rashtriya Loktantrik Samata Party’s Upendra Kushwaha — the evenly distributed five per cent Paswans with Ram Vilas Paswan and rest of the 10 to 11 per cent Mahadalits with former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi. It also estimates that the majority of the 30 per cent Extremely Backward Castes, comprising 114 castes, will also support its alliance.

4) Narendra Modi: The prime minister’s popularity is still undiminished. The large crowds that have turned up at his dozen election rallies are evidence of this. The BJP estimates the ‘Modi effect’ will help it increase its vote share in Bihar from the 38.5 per cent that its alliance received in the 2014 multi-polar Lok Sabha contest. The BJP needs a vote share of at least 43 to 44 per cent to win Bihar in what is now essentially a two-horse race. It hopes to beat the trend of failing to match its vote share of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in subsequent state elections in Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, and Delhi. Incidentally, its only defeat — drubbing, in fact — since 2014 came where its main rival was a credible non-Congress party: In Delhi against the Aam Aadmi Party in February.

5) Women voters: The high turnout of women in the first two phases is thought to be a vote for Modi’s promise of security and development.

6) Beef: The BJP thinks it has Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on the run for his remarks about eating beef, forcing the former Bihar chief minister to clarify them at each of his rallies. This, it believes, has also neutralised whatever damage the party suffered because of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s remarks on reviewing the caste-based reservation policy.

There is hope the Left parties and Third Front alliance that the Samajwadi Party leads will eat into the votes of the Grand Alliance. The BJP has a well-oiled team of strategists that have undertaken a course correction after realising the ‘Bihar versus Bahari (or outsider) campaign of its rivals could be getting traction because it over-projected Modi and Shah. It has now put up more hoardings of its local leaders like Sushil Modi, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Nand Kishore Yadav, Ravi Shankar Prasad, and others.

Article Source: Business Standard

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Bihar Polls 2015: Chinks in the armour of both alliances

Ever since the Election Commission on September 9 announced that election to Bihar’s 243 Assembly seats would take place over five phases starting October 12, 2015 the state, gripped by an ‘election fever’, has been a hotbed of political permutations and combinations

The Land of Buddha, whose mandate will be known on November 8, is also a major battleground for national politics. Historically, the state has boasted being home to the first President of India, Rajendra Prasad, besides revolutionary leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan.

Here are a few things to know about the hotting political scene in Bihar Polls 2015:

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar welcomes Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his arrival in Patna on August 18, 2015.

Root of the present political crisis

Even apart from the preparation for the state election, Bihar has been in the midst of a political tension because of differences between the ruling party and a rebel faction that has now become a breakaway party.

Months before the Assembly elections, Jitan Ram Manjhi, who had been installed as chief minister less than a year earlier, was asked to make way for party senior and former CM Nitish Kumar. JD(U) leader Kumar, who had quit office after his party fared poorly in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, now wanted to come back to power.

But Manjhi showed reluctance to vacate the CM’s chair and was expelled from the party. This led to a political crisis and the state’s Governor asked Manjhi to seek a vote of confidence on February 20. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which had earlier broken away from its alliance with JD(U), announced it would support Manjhi. But Manjhi still failed to shore up enough support to reach the magical figure of 122 members required to retain power.

The birth of the ‘Grand Alliance’

When Kumar re-assumed the role of Bihar’s CM, and BJP’s support to Manjhi made it clear that the party could prove a challenger to JD(U) in the coming Assembly elections, several parties outside of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) joined hands to form a formidable grouping.

Since sweeping the Lok Sabha elections and forming a majority government at the Centre, the BJP-led NDA, under the leadership of Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, had become all the more strong across India. Barring a debacle in Delhi, where it got an unexpected drubbing from the Aam Aadmi Party, NDA had since convincingly swept almost every single election at every level.

It was to stop this NDA juggernaut that the so-called ‘Grand Alliance’ was formed. The members were the Sharad Yadav-led JD(U), Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP), H D Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular), Om Prakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal and the Chandra Shekhar-founded Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya).

Discord in the ‘Grand Alliance’

Things, however, did not remain rosy among all constituents of the Janata Parivar after a seat-sharing formula for the Assembly elections was announced. Initially, the alliance decided that JD(U) and RJD would contest on 100 seats each, and the Congress on 40. There also was the plan to offer the remaining three seats to Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

But NCP rebuffed this seat-sharing formula and decided to go it alone on all 243 seats. Besides, also miffed over the arrangement was the Samajwadi Party, which decided to opt out of the alliance. Though Lalu Prasad tried to cajole SP’s Mulayam Singh Yadav by offering the three seats refused by NCP and two of RJD’s own, Yadav eventually walked out of the alliance, citing the grouping’s alleged closeness to the Congress party.

Some smoke, some fire in the NDA camp, too

Even the BJP-led NDA has not been without differences so far. No sooner had the alliance arrived at a seat-sharing plan than a bickering began in the camp. The members of this alliance apart from BJP are Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), the Upendra Kushwaha-led Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) and Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM). While BJP is contesting on 160 of the 243 seats, LJP has been given 40, RLSP 23 and late entrant HAM 20.

On reports that LJP was upset with BJP over sharing of seats, party leader and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s son Chirag Paswan on September 15 said at an especially convened press conference: “There is no smoke without fire... We were not angry but shocked. We were taken aback because the formula agreed upon during the negotiations was different. We just want the same parameters to be applied in our case.”

Paswan junior conveyed the message that all was not well within the NDA camp. But after BJP chief Amit Shah promised that LJP’s concerns would be addressed, it seemed largely given that the coalition would not fall apart. He denied the reports that his party was upset with the number of seats Manjhi’s party had walked away with.

“Manjhi is a prominent leader and he has a key role in Bihar elections. Manjhi, Kushwaha and we are all the same family,” Chirag Paswan said. The LJP leader, though, also admitted to giving a list of leaders from Manjhi’s party against whom he and his party had reservations.

Irony of the elections and a CM vs PM battle

Bihar is known to be one of the poorest states in India. What people in the state have been looking for is development. The common man today is struggling to survive in the face of rising costs, poverty and corruption.

With that in mind, JD(U) earlier centred its campaign on the issues of development, good governance and law-and-order situation in Bihar. The party looked to target people from the lowest strata of society, the Mahadalits, besides the backward castes that make a large chunk of the state’s voters.

However, the state elections have in the run-up turned into a turf battle between Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And, the exchange of bitter verbal blows between them is only intensifying as the elections approach.

Earlier, Kumar criticised Modi and his government over several issues and alleged the latter did not keep his promise of giving Bihar the status of a special state. Modi, getting back with a special package of Rs 1.25 lakh crore for the state, besides an additional Rs 40,000 crore announced at a government function in Arrah, kicked up a storm with his ‘DNA’remark. Questioning the timing of the bounty, Kumar termed this package a trick to lure voters.

On July 25, Modi attacked Kumar saying there seemed “some problem with Nitish Kumar’s DNA”, as he frequently changed his political loyalty. Kumar lashed out at Modi for this remark and termed it an insult of the people of his state. JD(U) and RJD asked the PM to take his words back and launched a ‘Shabd Wapasi’ campaign. The JD(U) government reportedly collected around 1.5 million samples of nails and hair of people from Bihar and sent those to Modi.

According to sources, the irony of this election is that neither of the alliances is talking about the real issues concerning the lives of the common man of Bihar, such as education, electricity and employment. Many say that the polls are increasingly turning into a CM vs PM war, where both have their own high stakes.

Pollsters’ call

According to a pre-poll survey conducted by Zee media group, the BJP-led NDA could win a majority in the Bihar Assembly elections, a crucial test for the Narendra Modi government’s popularity 18 months after talking charge at the Centre.

The survey showed NDA winning 140 of the 243 seats. On the other hand, the grand alliance might win only 70 seats. However, the survey also showed that there could be a tight contest on the remaining 33 seats and that it was difficult to predict the winner on those.

The vote percentage factor

One of the most important parts of the Zee survey was that it showed 41.2 per cent of the state’s Muslims might vote for NDA, while the rest would favour the grand alliance. NDA could win 52.6 per cent of the Hindu votes, while 40.8 per cent Hindus would likely opt for the grand alliance. Among the Yadav community voters, considered crucial in Bihar, 47.8 per cent were expected to vote for NDA, and 47.5 per cent for the grand alliance.

Grand alliance’s take on pre-poll survey

Asked about JD(U)’s prospects in the light of the pre-poll survey, a party leader who did not wish to be named told Business Standard: “See, these surveys do not reach a wider sample to gauge a more inclusive view. So it is not right to accord much credence to them at this point. I doubt their methodology of conducting surveys. To their claim that NDA is winning this election, I would say it is too early to say. The true picture will be known on November 8.”

Article Source: Business Standard

Bihar polls 2015: Nominations for second phase begin.

The filing of nomination papers for the second phase of the Bihar polls 2015, slated to be held on October 16, began on Monday, an official said. In the second phase, elections will be held in 32 of the 243 assembly constituencies. The last date for filing nominations for the second phase is September 28. While the scrutiny of papers will be held on September 29, candidates can withdraw their nominations till October 1. 

Additional Chief Electoral Officer R Lakshamanan said here that the process for the five-phase assembly elections in Bihar began last week with filing of nomination papers for the first phase. The constituencies going to polls in the second phase are in Gaya, Aurangabad, Jehanabad, Arwal, Rohtas and Kaimur districts.

Bihar polls 2015 Nominations for second phase begin

The main contest is between the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the grand alliance of Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress.Bihar will elect a new 243-member assembly in staggered polls to be held between October 12 and November 5. The counting of votes will be held on November 8.

Earlier Nominations for first phase in Bihar polls 2015

The filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Bihar assembly polls, slated to be held on October 12, began on Wednesday, an official said. In the first phase, elections will be held in 49 of the 243 assembly constituencies. "The process for the five-phase assembly elections in Bihar has begun," Additional Chief Electoral Officer R. Lakshamanan said here.

The last date for filing nominations for this phase is September 23. While the scrutiny of papers will be held on September 24, candidates can withdraw their nominations till September 26. The constituencies going to polls in the first phase are in 10 districts of the state -- including Begusarai, Khagaria, Bhagalpur, Munger, Jamui and Samastipur. The main contest is between the BJP-led NDA and the grand alliance of JD-U, RJD and the Congress. Bihar will elect a new 243-seat assembly in the staggered polls that begin on October 12 and end on November 5. The counting of votes will be held on November 8.

Article Source: Business Standard