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Politics and Public Policy in India

November 24, 2010 • 10:20 am 2

Nitish wins, Rahul bombs – Bihar Election Results 2010

A short blog post as the leads are trending towards a 100s-70s split between the JD-U and BJP while the NDA alliance in Bihar coasts towards a resounding victory.

While counting is still on it is clear what the obvious headline will be – “Nitish wins” and wins big.

It is abundantly clear that Lalu Yadav is headed the Deve Gowda way of being the Darth Vader of Bihar’s
Politics.

What is also clear is the not so likely headline on how Rahul Gandhi’s two Indias, two Bihars rhetoric has bombed big time.

The Rahul Gandhi appeal has much distance to cover before it can transcend the hard realpolitic of micro-mandalization coupled with a clean track record of governance.

We will have to wait to see the final seat tally between the JD-U and the BJP to draw long term inferences on the dynamic that will likely play out between the two partners. While it is facile to dismiss away the media mullah’s obsessive focus on the Narendra Modi versus Nitish Kumar dynamic, its a reality that will have to be confronted sooner than later by the BJP.

If the current trends hold

BJP has a better strike rate than JDU. BJP up by 15-16 seats; JDU gains by 8-10 seats

Kanchan Gupta: With trends holding in all 243 seats, BJP looks set to touch 75-77. Gains could be as high as 20-22. JDU at 100 gains half that with 12 additional seats. Laloo suffers most, losing nearly half the seats he held

this result will not have a clarifying effect on how that dyanmic will shape. If anything this result complicates it further. Firstly it does not help clarify the wisdom of the BJP indulging its alliance partner on Narendra Modi’s presence or absence in the election campaign. Secondly it also does not help clarify the question on what national plank the BJP lead NDA will forge to take on the UPA in the run up to the 2014 elections.

So while the people of Bihar look forward to another 5 years of performant governance and perhaps more political empowerment on account of micro-mandalization, the BJP’s many contenders for power in 2014 will have to look forward to more questions than answers from this outcome.

One man comes out looking good from this outcome for the BJP is Nitin Gadkari. He took a low profile approach to the election with some innovations to his credit like the booth level mobilization by getting the BJP’s Uttar Pradesh leadership to work the booths.

While the BJP may lack a big name and a big idea in Uttar Pradesh this test run to its UP team should place it well ahead of the 2012 Uttar Pradesh elections.

Filed under: bihar elections 2010

November 23, 2010 • 9:46 pm 5

Bihar Election Results 2010 – Live Blogging

Offstumped will live blog the results on this blog, twitter and also will be a panelist at the below Online event.

To join the Online live event for Bihar Election Results Click Here

Watch this page for further updates.

Related Tweets:

Also read: The Nitish Kumar dilemma

Filed under: bihar elections 2010

October 26, 2010 • 2:52 am 11

Bihar Elections 2010 – The Nitish Kumar dilemma

The maiden Bihar elections blog post after what has been an otherwise uninspiring election campaign in Bihar.  Two phases have gone by and the public debate has mostly centered around three individuals neither of who is on the ballot in Bihar – Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi and of course Nitish Kumar. Some would say the election is about Nitish Kumar’s governance, but at the end of the day the fact remains he sat out of this election, choosing the easier and more predictable path of the Legislative Council.

The more interesting political moves in the Bihar election however center around the other two individuals and have to do with political outcomes that go far beyond Bihar.  If Sushma Swaraj’s remarks on Narendra Modi’s ”magic” signalled that the beginning of the race for 2014, Sharad Yadav’s remarks on Rahul Gandhi had not so obvious political calculations.

Therein lies the central dilemma for both the BJP and Nitish Kumar’s own grassrootless partymen in this election.

They both want to win in Bihar but they dont want Nitish Kumar to win at their expense. If they have their way, they would much rather look forward to a  Nitish Kumar cut down to size with a little  fewer seats,  a lot less swagger and far less independence.

Part of the blame for this ambivalence from his best friends has to go to his spin doctors in the Delhi based media who have blown the  Nitish Kumar phenomenon out of proportion. End of the day he is still a regional leader of a regional party who can at best command the loyalty of not more than 25 Members of Parliament. 

A serious reality check is in order to those who have been attempting to fashion Nitish Kumar as a VP Singh who would be acceptable enough to lead a rainbow coalition of sorts. They forget that the Indian voter has no appetite for the “tail wagging the dog” scenarios. The era of nominating Prime Ministers from a party with double digit representation in the Lok Sabha is over.

There is however one aspect in which Nitish Kumar stands out as a protege of V.P. Singh, perhaps even his true successor. It is in the degree to which Nitish Kumar has pursued the logic of Mandal politics, taking it to its logical extreme with the targeting of sub-castes and sub-sects within the Muslim vote bank in Bihar.

Nitish has entered into another innovative ‘social engineering’. Muslims are not only divided along caste lines, they are divided along sub-sectarian lines also.

The Barelvi-Deobandi divide among the Sunni Muslims, sharply polarised, is being wooed by Nitish by showing favourable overtures to the Idara-e-Sharia.

The most popular step Nitish took was reserving seats for lower backward castes in the rural and urban local body elections (Panchayati Raj Institutions) of 2006, which spent huge amounts on the social sector and infrastructure development.

As many as 27 castes of Muslims (Ajlaf and Arzal) fall in the category of lower backward (which is known as Annexure-I, since 1978, when Karpoori Thakur was the socialist, non-Congress chief minister of Bihar. And the reservation benefit was only confined to provincial government jobs).

We must wait till the 24th of November to know how much independence Nitish Kumar has earned from his best friends or to learn how much the voters of Bihar have  indulged them in their ambivalence towards him. 

But one thing is certain  Bihar is no Gujarat where Muslims have started to vote on the logic of their pocketbooks. It perhaps is too early to think of socio-economic engineering in Bihar for Social Engineering in Bihar has not run its full course. Nitish Kumar’s lasting political legacy in Bihar will likely be the micro-mandalization of the monolithic Muslim vote bank.

Filed under: bihar elections 2010

RSS Now Playing on Offstumped Live

  • On Third Front day dreams and Uttar Pradesh nightmares – Wrap up Podcast March 14, 2012
    A podcast conversation with  @dubash (http://phalaka.com) where we wrap up the Uttar Pradesh polls discussion with a look at the final numbers and analysis of vote shares. We also look ahead on all the buzz around Akhilesh Yadav, the rise of the Samajwadi Party and all of the day-dreaming over a possible Third Front Government [...]
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