Bihar: Nitish squeezed out between BJP, Cong-Lalu combine

Nitish Kumar cannot be a happy man. Barely a year ago, he was riding high. Reacting to the BJP decision to push Narendra Modi to the forefront of its electoral campaign, the Bihar Chief Minister - who clearly saw himself on par with his Gujarat counterpart - exited the NDA alliance after a 17-year relationship. [caption id=“attachment_1459361” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Nitish does not see to have done anything right in the last few months: PTI[/caption] At the time of the exit, the move was perceived to be a massive blow to the NDA. As we then noted in Firstpost : For the BJP, the exit of the JD(U) from the NDA alliance reflects another political dilemma. It has already lost one alliance partner in a crucial State even before it has formally named Modi as its candidate. In that sense, the BJP’s calculation that Modi will be a vote-multiplier and bring in many more seats has already gone a little awry: if anything, the NDA’s numerical strength stands diminished following the JD(U)’s exit. One year later however, the numbers tell a very different story. According to a poll survey conducted by the Lokniti, CSDS-IBN National Tracker, Nitish Kumar is in a vastly different place to where he must have imagined himself to be.  As he braces for the toughest electoral battle of his career, he has no ally to fall back on ; the castes that backed him through two elections have started abandoning him; and his own party men don’t trust his leadership acumen anymore. The more Narendra Modi, his arch rival, expands his influence on his turf, the more cornered Nitish looks. According to the data, the BJP - LJP alliance is comfortably ahead in the race for the Lok Sabha elections, and is expected to win a massive 43 percent of the voteshare in the state. And that is not even Nitish’s biggest problem. That lies in the fact that the Congress - RJD combine is in second place, expected to win 28 percent of the voteshare to the JD(U)’s 16 percent. This number is in fact a four percentage point drop from numbers recorded in January 2014, when the party was projected to win 20 percent of the vote. What is worse, the JD(U) cannot even take comfort in the fact that they will still be able to hold on to the assembly. The numbers show that, in what can only be described as a shocking turnaround, the BJP is expected to also win the assembly, increasing its perceived voteshare to 35 percent in March, from an expected 23 percent in January. The JD(U), which was projected to win 39 percent of the vote in January, is now only expected to win 26 percent of the vote now. The data, which is based on a survey of 1,557 people, has been compared against data collected in February and January. The biggest story of these numbers is of course, the further cementing of the isolation of Nitish Kumar. His decision to break away from the BJP has not only backfired, but it has also not brought him any of the dividends he hoped for. Although the Bihar Chief Minister was the first to raise the banner of secularism against the Gujarat Chief Minister, he does not seem to be getting any benefit from the anti-Modi vote. These seem to be going instead to the Congress - RJD - NCP combine. He is literally being squeezed into third place - and irrelevance. This is further explained in the caste and religion breakdown of the Lokniti - CSDS data. It shows that 53 percent of the Muslim vote is going to the Congress party, while the BJP is in second place with 22 percent of the Muslim voteshare. The Dalit and OBC vote share has gone the way of the BJP, while the Yadav’s seem to be strongly backing Lalu Prasad Yadav - the numbers show that the Congress - RJD alliance will get 54 percent of this vote. The other takeaway from the data seems to be the fact that the BJP’s tie up with Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP has worked. The steady increase in the party’s voteshare among Dalit and OBC voters is testimony to this fact. As many as 45 percent of ‘other’ OBC’s are expected to vote for the BJP; along with 33 percent of Dalits. This along with the fact that 71 percent of the upper caste vote is expected to stay with the party puts the BJP in a very strong position. What this also means is that the Congress made a costly mistake in not moving faster to secure the LJP partnership. If it had managed to cement the partnership in time, the party would have been in a vastly superior position to its current state - and would have been in a position to give the BJP a real headache. As things stand now however, the BJP looks like it has little to worry about. It seems to have done everything right. It has played the caste cards well, its alliance has been well timed and fruitful, and the Modi wave seems to have worked its magic on the upper castes - putting it in a near unassailable position. Nitish’s JD(U) on the other hand is left with virtually no partners. The party expected to rope in support from the ambitious 11-party non-Congress, non-BJP front. The front has proved to be non-starter. He expected the Left to back him in Bihar, but the former seems in no mood to oblige - they don’t want to lose their captive votes by ceding more seats to the JD(U). Nitish, who heads JD(U)’s alliance matters, was willing to offer only two seats to the CPI and one for the CPM. Both parties look prepared to go it alone now, leaving JD(U) alone against two formidable alliances.