NDA won big in Bihar in 2019, 5 yrs later, areas south of Ganges, pockets in north pose challenge

Having battered the opposition five years ago, the ruling NDA in Bihar has made a rather optimistic claim of bagging all 40 Lok Sabha seats, though about a quarter of these, where its performance was less than spectacular, could be a cause for concern.

In the ''Modi Tsunami'' of 2019, when the state had lost two sons of its soil in the dastardly Pulwama terror attack, the BJP, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and late Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party had together notched up 39 seats, with a vote share of more than 53 per cent, a nearly 20 per cent edge over the 'Mahagathbandhan'.

However, buried beneath the dazzling statistics is the fact that in at least six seats, the victory margin was less than one lakh votes, and four of these fall in the area south of the Ganges.

In Jehanabad, which JD(U)'s Chandeshwar Prasad Chandravanshi managed to win, the margin was a wafer-thin of 1,751 votes.

The runner-up was Surendra Prasad Yadav, an RJD leader who had formerly represented the seat.

His party then had an alliance, among others, with Hindustani Awam Morcha of Jitan Ram Manjhi and former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha who merged his Rashtriya Lok Samata Party with JD(U) a year later, only to fall apart again and float Rashtriya Lok Morcha.

Both Manjhi and Kushwaha are now BJP allies though the NDA ill-affords to rest assured on this account. This is, in no small measure, because of the fact that the RJD has now stitched an alliance with the CPI(ML) Liberation, its once bitter rival, and the two parties fared extremely well in the assembly polls in Jehanabad and adjoining areas, which used to remain in headlines a few decades ago for the bloody battles between ultra-Left guerillas and private militia of landlords.

In the 2020 assembly polls, the RJD-CPI(ML) combine grabbed all the seats that fall under Jehanabad Lok Sabha constituency, three of these falling in the eponymous district, two in Arwal and one in Gaya.

No wonder, both the NDA and the 'Mahagathbandhan' are wracking their brains, trying to decide which party be given the seat this time and who be named the candidate.

A tightly fought battle is also expected in Pataliputra, which adjoins Patna Sahib, but unlike the latter which is a largely urban constituency with a pronounced pro-BJP leaning, seems vulnerable.

In 2019, former Union minister Ram Kripal Yadav, who had joined BJP five years earlier following disillusionment with his ex-mentor Lalu Prasad, managed to defeat the RJD supremo's daughter Misa Bharti for the second consecutive time.

However, the less-than-impressive margin of 39,321 votes was proof that it was a hard-won victory and the NDA simply could not hold its own in the assembly polls held a year and a half later. The troika of RJD, CPI(ML) Liberation and Congress grabbed all the six seats in rural Patna that form Patliputra constituency, demonstrating what may be in store for the future.

The 'Mahagathbandhan' also made a clean sweep in the assembly polls in seats falling under Aurangabad and Karakat Lok Sabha constituencies, both of which the NDA has been winning since the 2009 parliamentary elections.

Two other south Bihar seats, which the BJP had won comfortably in 2019 but where voters got swayed by the Mahagathbandhan in 2020 are Arrah, represented by Union minister R K Singh, and Sasaram, a reserved constituency which was the bastion of former Deputy Prime Minister Jagjivan Ram whose daughter Meira Kumar won it till as recently as 2009.

North of the Ganges, the NDA may need extra efforts in Kishanganj, the only seat it lost, and Katihar, where former Union minister Tariq Anwar put up a spirited fight, less than a year after returning to the Congress.

The NDA had lost Kishanganj, the only seat where Muslims are more than 50 per cent of the electorate, by a margin of under 40,000 votes. The 'Mahagathbandhan' continues to allege that Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM had fielded a candidate to cut into the votes polled by the Congress.

However, an unfazed AIMIM has declared that it intends to contest 11 seats this time, including Kishanganj, where the BJP-led coalition has an obvious disadvantage, and Katihar, which the JD(U) candidate Dulal Chandra Goswami won by nearly 57,000 votes, but where Congress and CPI(ML) have performed well in assembly polls.

One seat, which may be very tightly fought despite the NDA having won comfortably in 2019, is Hajipur, about which the BJP is yet to make up its mind about whom to back, sitting MP Pashupati Kumar Paras or his nephew Chirag Paswan.

The uncle and the nephew head splinter groups of late Paswan's party and whoever is not backed by the NDA is certain to turn against the coalition this time, much to the delight of 'Mahagathbandhan', given the fact that four, out of six assembly seats there, were notched up by RJD and Congress in the 2020 Vidhan Sabha polls.

The NDA also faces a tough challenge in Chhapra, Siwan and Maharajganj Lok Sabha seats, where it suffered major reverses in the assembly polls.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)