The emphatic victory of the National Democratic Alliance in the Bihar assembly election last week is likely to have far-reaching consequences, both politically and otherwise. Discounting, for the moment, the frustrations of the section of the Opposition Mahagathbandhan (the local name for the INDIA grouping that fought the 2024 parliamentary election with moderate success) that believes the Election Commission of India conspired to ensure the re-election of the ruling alliance at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership, it would seem that the trends visible a year ago have been quite decisively reversed.
Following the failure of the BJP to regain its single-party majority of 2014 and 2019 and its dependence on its NDA allies, the perception that the Narendra Modi era was approaching its final phase was discernible in many circles. The Congress, in particular, saw the 2024 results as vindication of its persisting faith in the leadership of the Gandhi family. The aggression shown by the Opposition in Parliament was clearly aimed at making the government dysfunctional. It was believed that the series of assembly polls in states where INDIA had performed well in 2024 would make the BJP’s position untenable and even lead to a premature collapse of the Modi government.
The resounding NDA victories in Haryana and Maharashtra upset the calculations of the Opposition. Although the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha saved the day in Jharkhand, it should have been perfectly clear to all that the BJP wasn’t in any mood to allow the setbacks of the Lok Sabha poll to set the future agenda. The over-confidence, verging on smug complacency, that contributed to the 2024 losses were sought to be addressed by the BJP leadership at different levels. The Opposition should have learnt a few lessons from the single-minded micro-management of the constituencies by the BJP. It didn’t.
The Bihar election was a triumph for the NDA on nearly all counts. First, in terms of political messaging, it combined its commitment to welfare — the Rs 10,000 sop to women voters was carefully targeted — with a dream of economic prosperity. Secondly, it re-invoked memories of the ‘jungle raj’ unleashed by the Lalu Prasad-Rabri Devi administrations of the past. The dread of Bihar reverting to the old lawlessness appears to have nudged women voters more decisively in the direction of the NDA. The sobriety of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was favourably contrasted to the rough approach of the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s core vote base. Finally, the NDA left absolutely nothing to chance. It ensured there would be no division in its own ranks and its social micro-management ensured a quiet non-Yadav and non-Muslim consolidation. This careful social engineering contrasted with the over-dependence of Tejashwi Yadav on the RJD’s tried and tested M-Y alliance. This time, however, the Congress, which was supposed to secure a chunk of the upper-caste votes and bolster the Opposition’s standing among Muslims, completely failed to deliver. The conclusion that the old networks of the Congress have largely dissipated is inescapable. Mention must also be made of Asaduddin Owaisi cutting into the Mahagathbandhan’s votes in all the 25 seats it contested. It certainly made a difference in the Seemanchal region bordering West Bengal.
The BJP’s euphoria over the Bihar outcome is warranted. It would however seem that the magnitude of the victory was dictated by the Congress’s inflated sense of its own worth and its preoccupation with the alleged malpractices of the EC, an issue that just didn’t resonate with the ordinary voters. It is also worth considering if the exaggerated importance accorded to the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) led the Mahagathbandhan to underestimate the importance of Bihar’s yearning to transcend poverty and bloody class struggle. The leftward drift of the Congress in recent years can be attributed to the strange cohabitation of ‘urban Naxals’ with the Nepo kids with American degrees who hang around Rahul Gandhi.
Even if the Ganges does indeed flow into Bengal from Bihar, it is unlikely that the self-goals scored by the RJD and the Congress will be replicated by the All India Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. For a start, there is no coalition incoherence that can come to the aid of the BJP in the state. The election next year will be a headlong conflict between the AITC and the BJP, with the Left trying to claim a few crumbs of lost glory. Secondly, in terms of election management, the AITC has replicated the methodology of the Left Front it displaced in 2011. This means that the tradition of violence against opponents that has been a feature of Bengal politics since 1967 is still firmly intact. The EC’s revision of voter rolls can marginally lower the incidence of voter fraud but it will take a lot of administrative supervision for ‘normal’ elections to be held in Bengal.
Till the first decade of this century, Bihar excelled in booth capturing, ballot stuffing, caste intimidation and murder. That is now history. In Bengal, election management continues to imply something unique.
Since 2021, Mamata Banerjee has never lost an opportunity to make political capital of Bengal’s cultural exceptionalism. She has been unfailing in her insistence that the BJP is a party of the Hindi belt and is unable to either understand or respect the cultural impulses of Bengal. In 2021, the BJP strengthened Banerjee’s claims by its over-reliance on Hindi-speaking leaders from other states. This time, however, the BJP has blended its all-India credentials with an organic local leadership. Therefore, unless the BJP shows an astonishing measure of cultural insensitivity, the AITC’s nativism may not have any profound impact.
No doubt 15 years of anti-incumbency plus the swagger of its local leadership will weigh strongly against the AITC. But what will be decisive is how Bengalis perceive their future. A state which has moved from being among the two most developed provinces at Independence to becoming the largest supplier of migrant labour (both unskilled and highly skilled) will be confronted with stark choices. The BJP has an impressive track record of putting states in its charge on the economic map of India. This includes neighbouring Assam. By contrast, the records of the AITC and, earlier, the Left, have been dismal. Furthermore, the ground-level high-handedness of the AITC is a deterrent against entrepreneurship. By and large, India’s growth trajectory has bypassed Bengal completely. Bengal, however, leads the country in the creation of a carnival economy that is encouraged and even subsidised by the State. It is Banerjee’s most striking achievement.
The choice next year before the state is quite apparent to most voters. It’s really a question where the electorate sets its sights, what it aspires to.