Seasoned politician and veteran administrator Nitish Kumar is set to roll back to power and occupy the post of Chief Minister in Bihar for the seventh time – a rare achievement in Indian politics. This, despite the fact that his party has lost a substantial number of seats – nearly two-thirds of what it contested – due largely to a revolt within the NDA targeting him, and at the hands of the Lok Janshakti Party of Chirag Paswan. With the BJP getting a larger share of seats – 74 – than the JDU tally of 47, the BJP leadership still seems willing to honour a commitment it made to the CM that he would not be disturbed from the post.
Notably, both the JDU and the BJP had contested about equal number of seats for the 243-member state assembly. Suspicion still lurks in JDU circles as to whether BJP played any role in the LJP’s fielding of candidates in all the seats that the JDU contested. For the sake of the NDA unity, this issue might now be ignored and Nitish’s hurt feelings assuaged by the saffron side.
Clearly, the Mahagatbandhan failed to muster more support than what it traditionally enjoyed from the Yadavs and Muslims. With such a high-voltage campaign, its leader Tejasjwi Yadav ultimately cut a sorry figure. Apparently, his own pre-election strategies failed, though initially it was felt that his 10-lakh jobs promise did evoke a good response from the youths.
While the Mahagatbandhan tried to erase the feeling of the RJD being a sectarian enterprise, this did not click as the results showed. The people seemed wary of the RJD even 15 years after the family’s leadership of the state from CM post ended. The Congress party failed to re-activate itself and got very few seats. The smile is on the CPIML-L which won a substantial number of seats – 12, from the traditional red belt in the state.
While Nitish Kumar did well as chief minister, having reached basic amenities to the countryside and ensured security to the people in general and women in particular, the state deserves much more. Building more bridges and the like will fasten development, but the world is growing at a faster pace, requiring more dynamism from those who govern. Bihar is where poverty and want are acute. Large numbers of its youths continue to travel to other states to seek work in the absence of opportunities in their own state. The entire eastern sector failed to catch up with the faster-paced development in the north, east and south. The new government must do better.