Election Tracker: Decoding why Modi, not Nitish, is set to sweep Bihar

After the BJP and Janata Dal (United) split, it seemed like Bihar would become a battleground between two prime minister aspirants with both sharing the spoils, but a new survey says that a clear victor may emerge in the state. Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar may be in the running to corner a majority of the seats in the state but the IBN-Lokniti poll indicates that the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate presently looks set to conquer his opponent’s turf. “As far as the Lok Sabha polls are concerned, Nitish Kumar has lost his plot completely. Voters do vote differently in Lok Sabha and Assembly polls and in the state elections Nitish still holds an edge,” Ramchandra Guha, author and historian, said on CNN-IBN during a panel discussion on the Lokniti-IBN National Election Tracker poll on Bihar. [caption id=“attachment_1421023” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi seems to be in the lead in Bihar. PTI[/caption] Senior journalist Swapan Dasgupta said Kumar remained a man to reckon with when the polls are limited to the state but his role in national elections may still be a small one. “There is little doubt that Nitish is a formidable player in the Vidhan Sabha elections,” he said. However, Surjit S Bhalla, Chairman of Oxus Investments, believes that even when it comes to state elections, the BJP leaders in Bihar couldn’t be written off so easily. “Sushil Modi played second fiddle to Nitish by plan. I will not write off the local Bihar BJP leaders when there will be an Assembly election,” he said. In Bihar, the BJP is expected to benefit from a shrewd decision to project Modi in a manner to ensure he appealed to voters beyond the BJP’s traditional voter base. “BJP is very consciously relegating local issues to the background. It is almost making it like a presidential election. The question of who will become the chief minister is left for another day. There is also a conscious effort to focus Modi as a member of the OBC community to get votes outside of the BJP’s tradional base,” Dasgupta said. The party has also ensured that the focus remained on Modi’s leadership skills. “People seem to be looking for a leader and Modi has positioned himself as a leader. It is a plain and simple fight for leadership,” Bhalla said. And even Modi’s rival from the Congress  has lost out in the battle to project his leadership qualities, felt the panelists. “Modi is also ahead of Rahul Gandhi in leadership qualities because the latter simply lack administrative experience,” Guha said. The return of the Ram Vilas Paswan-headed Lok Janshakti Party to the NDA-fold is also a morale booster for the BJP, more so because the two parties had parted ways over Modi’s handling of the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. “Seculiarism is a spurious idea that was conjured up in this election. Despite being a Modi critic, Paswan joining hands with the BJP prime ministerial candidate sends out a clear message,” Dasgupta said. However, Manini Chatterjee, national affairs editor at The Telegraph, believes that while the LJP may have returned, the survey doesn’t indicate it will do the alliance any good. “The BJP numbers are going up but not the NDA numbers,” she said. But while one-time political foes like the LJP may have been able to forget the past, the Muslim community in the state remains wary about the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. This could benefit the Congress-RJD alliance, but will it affect Modi or Nitish’s chances? “The Muslims will consolidate behind the Congress-RJD alliance. But I am not sure of Yadav votes. The Yadavs are increasingly getting away from Lalu Prasad,” Guha said.