The recent statement on seat sharing formula by the JD(U) Vice President Prashant Kishor, has increased worries for the Bharatiya Janata Party. Prashant Kishore, a well-known poll strategist, who helped Modi win 2014 Lok Sabha elections, is one among those who strongly opposed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). On this, he even urged the non-BJP chief ministers to “save the soul of India” by saying no to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill [CAB].
Prashant Kishor was the first JD(U) leader to publicly express disappointment over his party’s support to CAB in the Lok Sabha, holding that the legislation discriminates against people "on the basis of religion".
If this is an act of vengeance, who else can tell this better than him? It is an established fact that after Modi’s victory in 2014 general elections, Prashant departed from the Modi camp, after there were disagreements over the lateral entry of people into government. The election strategist actively joined politics last year, where he was inducted into Janta Dal United (JDU), by his close friend Nitish Kumar. At present, he is the Vice President of JD(U).
The JD(U) leader asserted that his party should contest more seats than the BJP in the upcoming Bihar assembly election, scheduled to be held next year. The poll-strategist-turned-politician said, "The JD(U) is a bigger party, has close to 70 MLAs while the BJP has just over 50. Nevertheless, the Assembly elections are to be fought with Nitish Kumar as the NDA face.”
The JD(U) had fought the 2015 assembly elections in alliance with the RJD and the Congress, where the RJD won 81 of the 101 seats it fought on. The BJP had the poorest strike rate with victories on just 53 seats out of the 157 it contested, whereas the JD(U), as part of the grand alliance, contested 101 seats and won 71. In 2019, Lok Sabha elections, Allies JD(U) and BJP had contested 17 seats each, where six seats were allotted to Ramvilas Paswan’s, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). By 2020-end Nitish Kumar would be seeking a fourth term.
After having lost crucial allies and the poll debacle in key states like Maharashtra and Jharkhand, BJP is more likely to walk extra mile to keep Nitish Kumar in the NDA pavilion. Here are few challenges, which the BJP is facing in Bihar.
Anti-incumbency for Nitish
One of the reasons behind the defeat of BJP in neighbouring Jharkhand has been the anti-incumbency factor against former CM Raghubar Das. Political observers in Bihar are busy making calculations whether the same factor will affect Nitish Kumar, who has been in power for the past 15 years.
By poll results a wake-up call for JD(U) and BJP
The NDA in Bihar suffered a major setback in the by-polls to 5 assembly seats, held this year. The NDA managed to win just one with JD(U) begging the Nathnagar assembly seat. JDU was worst hit as it lost three of the four seats it contested. The bypoll results came as the much needed-fillip to RJD, which had drawn a blank in the Lok Sabha polls, as it wrested Simri Bakhtiarpur and Belhar from the JD(U) by impressive margins.
Ideological differences
Ideology has remained a major bone of contention between the BJP and the JD(U). The two parties have not been on the same page on contentious issues like triple talaq, NRC, Ayodhya and Article 370 and Citizenship Amendment Act. In 2013, Kumar parted his ways with BJP owing to the Ideological differences, which cost his party dearly in the Lok Sabha elections the following year and did the same to BJP in the 2015 assembly polls.
Though the BJP leaders have time and again maintained that Nitish has benefitted from the Modi wave, however the ground reality makes it evident that the Bihar Chief Minister has created a strong base among the extremely backward classes and Mahadalits through his work as well as social engineering.
The road ahead for NAMO and Nitish doesn’t appear to be smooth given the ideological difference and the anti-incumbency factor. As the year draws to a close, election fever brews in the state. Elections to the 243 assembly seats in Bihar are expected to take place in the last quarter of 2020. Meanwhile, Kishor’s demand for a lion share for JD(U) in Bihar has drawn sharp reactions from the BJP. The BJP has also made it clear that decision on seat sharing was a prerogative of the NDA’s top leadership.
The road ahead for NAMO and Nitish doesn’t appear to be smooth given the ideological difference and the anti-incumbency factor. As the year draws to a close, election fever brews in the state. Elections to the 243 assembly seats in Bihar are expected to take place in the last quarter of 2020. Meanwhile, Kishor’s demand for a lion share for JD(U) in Bihar has drawn sharp reactions from the BJP. The BJP has also made it clear that decision on seat sharing was a prerogative of the NDA’s top leadership.
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