Bihar Buries the Modi Wave: What Lies Beyond?

Congress supporters burn crackers as they celebrate Bihar poll results at party headquarters in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI)

Bihar has shown Narendra Modi the door. India’s Prime Minister staked everything to get the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in Patna, and lost.

After this landslide loss, the credibility of the regime he heads in New Delhi is dented. The prospects of better governance and reform look dim. And the myth of Modi-as-vote-magnet is in tatters.

The BJP waded into Bihar without a coherent campaign. It’s only message was Modi, who addressed around three dozen rallies when he was not travelling overseas. No Prime Minister before Modi had campaigned so heavily in any state election.

So, despite the BJP’s feeble efforts to deny it now, the Bihar outcome is a referendum on the performance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And that is because Modi chose to make it so, pitting himself personally against Nitish Kumar.

Impact on National Politics

Today, the BJP’s spin doctors are in overdrive to insulate Modi from the fallout of the Bihar disaster, and it is a disaster for the saffron outfit. Among all political parties in the fray, the BJP contested the maximum number of seats – 160 out of 243. At the time of writing this, it won or led in less than a third of those.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Arrah rally in Bihar. (Photo: PTI)

In comparison, Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD won between 75% and 80% of the 100 seats each party contested. Even the Congress, a distinctly junior partner of the grand alliance, did far better than the BJP, winning 60% of the 40 seats contested.

But the main significance of Sunday’s result will be its impact on national politics. Despite its parliamentary majority, the BJP got a shiner in Bihar. Its vituperative campaign, focussed on creating divisions between communities and castes, was a spectacular flop. Modi, and his friend BJP president Amit Shah will be held accountable for the defeat. Their grip on the party and government will weaken.

Bihar also reflects seething popular anger about the lack of dynamism at the Centre. Modi swept to power riding expectations of high growth, reform, jobs for India’s restless unemployed, building smart cities and dozens of other promises. Eighteen months later, New Delhi is in policy limbo and there’s little progress to show on the ground.

Bihar’s Voters Unimpressed by Modi

Bihar’s voters were acutely conscious of these failures, unimpressed by Modi’s campaign, uncertain about who would become Chief Minister in case the BJP won, and made their choice clear on polling day.

More Bihari women than men voted in the last Lok Sabha elections. (Photo: Reuters)

Nitish Kumar will become Bihar’s Chief Minister for the third time in a row. He will hope to capitalise on the goodwill of Lalu Yadav, the biggest winner in the tripartite coalition. On Sunday afternoon, Lalu, seated next to Nitish in Patna, made his intentions clear.

Nitish, he said, would lead the state with his full support. Lalu, meanwhile, will try and consolidate the BJP’s rivals into a coherent coalition. Lalu’s first stop on that journey will be Benaras, the constituency of Modi.

Biharis acted on behalf of all Indians by rejecting the BJP’s politics of divisiveness and intolerance of anything that doesn’t align with its Hindutva plank. And, more pain awaits the Modi-Shah BJP in the year to come.

BJP became the first main party to announce its candidates for the Bihar assembly elections. (Photo: Reuters)

What Next for BJP?

In Bengal, where elections are due in March, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) is a certain winner. The BJP can at best hope to come a distant third. Assam will go to polls soon thereafter. The BJP has been hoping to form its first government there. But the rub off from Bihar will dent those hopes. Vicious infighting within the Assam BJP will erode its chances further.

Kerala and Tamil Nadu will also hold elections around the same time. The BJP is a non-entity in the Dravidian politics of Tamil Nadu, where the AIADMK and DMK will slug it out for power.

Kerala witnesses contests between a Congress-led coalition and one led by the Left. The BJP has been trying to make inroads here, but has no real chance to form a government in Thiruvananthapuram.

Arvind Kejriwal’s fledgling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) demolished the BJP in Delhi elections earlier this year. But Delhi is a city-state, vastly different from other regions of India. The BJP could write off that loss as an aberration. The fiasco in Bihar is impossible to shrug off. Its shadow will haunt the BJP as it loses the elections of 2016.

(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist)