Lok Sabha elections: Can Tejashwi Yadav, anti-incumbency upset BJP's 'mission 40' in Bihar?

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, deputy chief ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Sinha, RJD MLA Tejashwi Yadav.

Political rivals in Bihar, rarely ever on the same page, are unanimous this time about the 2024 Lok Sabha election: the BJP-led NDA will not match its 2019 performance of winning 39 out of 40 Lok Sabha seats.

Why? A little shift in asymmetry for the first time in many decades could be changing equations. Nine-term chief minister Nitish Kumar, once the senior partner in the JD (U)-BJP alliance, has ceded ground to the saffron party by accepting to fight on 16 parliamentary constituencies to BJP’s 17, as per the terms of the NDA accord reached recently.

Doing so, it is a tacit admission that the main fight in general elections 2024 is between Narendra Modi’s BJP and RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, pretty much his own man but at another level, a proxy for his father, Lalu Yadav, who despite political setbacks, remains a grassroot politician with his ear to the ground.

RJD leader Shivanand Tiwari said: “There is no doubt that the NDA is not going to get 39/40. Tejashwi Yadav’s graph has gone up enormously. The young voters are flocking to his rallies, and he has provided the mahagathbandhan the much-needed adrenalin. By way of comparison, Nitish’s stock has come down, his own people are upset with him over his flip flops.”

The veteran politician told this reporter: “People are also tired of Modi speaking incessantly and it is certain that he will not be able to repeat his performance.”

Even Bihar JD(U) leader Neeraj Kumar concedes that it would be difficult to repeat 2019’s performance, but believes that the INDIA alliance is riddled with too many contradictions. “There is confusion among the allies. The RJD has announced symbol distribution without consulting its allies. The RJD-Congress leadership has not come up with an alternative plan and the RJD has not changed its political behaviour. There is a social contradiction between the allies,” he told this reporter.

Despite Modi’s growing clout in Bihar, and the hype over the Ram temple, an internal survey carried out by the BJP in January reportedly concluded that emotive issues won’t help the saffron camp sail through in the state as a formidable alliance of RJD, Congress, and the three Left parties could pose problems.

The NDA won 39 seats out of 40 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar during the 2019 parliamentary elections after bagging 53% votes.

However, much water has flown down the Ganga since then. While Modi’s magic may have sustained itself in this neck of the Hindi belt, the same cannot be said about his partner Nitish’s image, which has taken a huge beating both in terms of his charisma and governance and due to his numerous flip flops in the past few years.

Instead, Chirag Paswan has emerged as the X factor, the natural inheritor to the Ram Vilas Paswan legacy. His hold over nearly 7% Dalit vote is certain to play a role, particularly in an alliance with the BJP. To the saffron party’s credit, they have been astute enough to tie up with the Paswan scion instead of his estranged uncle and Ram Vilas’s younger brother, Pashupati Kumar Paras, a Union minister in the Modi government, who quit this month when his Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party (RLJP) received no seat allocations, as compared to Chirag’s five seats.

What bodes well for the RJD-Congress Mahagathbandhan is the addition of CPI-ML, CPM, and the CPI. The Left was not part of an alliance in Bihar in 2019. Between them, the three Left parties combined to poll around 10% votes, a healthy addition to the 31% RJD-Congress vote share.

But JD (U)’s Neeraj Kumar argues that the Left would become a factor “only if seats are allotted to them.”

Tejashwi Yadav – a former IPL player – has proved his mettle as a two-time deputy CM. He had helped RJD emerge as the single largest party during the November 2020 Assembly polls by promising jobs.

While his supporters say he has delivered, there remains an 8% employment gap in male labour force participation rate (LFPR) between India and Bihar. According to March 2024 figures, total employed persons are 44.44 % in India while in Bihar, it has been pegged at 33.75%.

Be that as it may, BJP’s induction of Chirag is meant to counter Tejaswi, in a battle of youngsters, where oldies are now beginning to look a bit jaded, says Shivanand Tiwari.

Veteran journalist Surendra Kishore, who knows Bihar better than most, believes anti-incumbency will hit the NDA to the extent of 8-10 seats.

“While the NDA will still emerge as the largest combination, there are casteist elements at play, like RJD’s Muslim-Yadav combination. While Nitish has maintained his secular image, despite being with the BJP, it remains to be seen how strong his extreme backward caste (EBC) combination, in addition to the Kurmi-Koeri vote bank, works this time,” he said.

The big question is whether Bihar could be setting a cow belt trend where the BJP’s maximum gains in 2019 could be reversed in 2024?

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