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Summary of Bihar Phase-1 Election

By Deepak Parvatiyar

October 13, 2015

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As many as 49 constituencies from across 10 districts from eastern and central Bihar voted on October 12, sealing the fate of 583 candidates including 54 women nominees in the first phase of five-phased Bihar state assembly elections. The ruling Janata Dal (United) was contesting 24 of the 49 seats in the first phase, while its respective alliance partners Lalu Yadav’s RJD was contesting 17 and the Congress, eight.
The BJP is contesting 27 seats in the first phase and its ally Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (that won four of this regions eight Lok Sabha seats in 2014), 13. Other BJP allies are contesting the nine other seats.
Considering that many of the constituencies were Naxal-hit, tight security was maintained and even three drones were deployed. The polling was largely peaceful.


Three things that marked the first phase of voting in Bihar on October 12 were:

1)     Record 57 per cent turnout of voters

This was the highest turnout of voters in these seats since delimitation in 2008. In 2010, the voters’ turnout in these seats was 50.85 per cent. The polling in the region was also  4 per cent higher than during the last Lok Sabha elections in 2014. The election commission has said the figures could rise even higher once the final compilations are done. This despite the fact that many of the constituencies in the 10 districts that went to polls were naxal-hit including Jamui, Lakhisarai, Munger, Nawada and  Sheikhpura, where polling concluded at 3 pm rather than 5 pm.

2)     Women voters outnumber their male counterparts

Although women comprised only 47 per cent of the total electorates in these 49 constituencies, there was a four per cent rise in women’s turn out that was 59.5 per cent as against male voters’ 54.5 per cent turnout.
There are various interpretations of women’s large turnout in the first phase. The supporters of Janata Dal (United) leader and chief minister Nitish Kumar have attributed this large turnout of women voters to his poll-eve call for prohibition in Bihar. The BJP has linked this with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election rallies in the region and his personal charisma. Bihar’s chief electoral officer Ajay V Nayak though had another take:  “It may be because of the exodus of men to other states primarily for work.” The Election Commission too had launched an awareness drive among voters and that too could be another reason for the large turnout of women voters.

3)     Dr Prem Kumar named as National Democratic Alliance’s CM candidate

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader and party’s star campaigner Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, who himself was a strong contender for the Bihar Chief Minister’s post, reportedly declared six-time BJP MLA from Gaya and a former minister Dr Prem Kumar as the party’s CM choice at an election rally in Dr Kumar’s home consitituency, Gaya just when polling was underway for the first phase. Gaya goes to polls in the second phase on October 16.
This merits a detailed analysis though. No doubt Dr Kumar is a prominent BJP leader seeking reelection for the seventh consecutive time from Gaya. Being among the senior most BJP leaders in the state, he and his supporters have been quite vocal about his chief ministerial ambitions. What makes him a formidable candidate is not just his track record as a minister in BJP-supported Nitish Kumar’s cabinet as minister for roads that is now being showcased by Nitish well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi as symbol of Bihar’s development, but also the fact that he belongs to the Extremely Backward Class that is comprised of 130 castes and has about 45 per cent vote share in the state.
The question though is that whether Shahnawaz declared Dr Kumar’s name as the next chief minister? The NDTV quoted him saying at a public rally in Gaya: “I request you (voters) to vote in large numbers and return your legislator Prem Kumar, who will be the Chief Ministerial candidate for the state. He will be the chief minister of the state if the NDA comes to power.”
However, the Times of India carried a clarification from Shahnawaz: “My praise for Kumar is being misinterpreted… I only said ‘Prem Kumar ko vote dijiye, ye jeet kar Gaya ka naam raushan karenge.”
Shahnawaz though did sound cryptic even in his clarification. What did he mean by “…ye jeet kar Gaya ka naam raushan karenge (Dr Kumar will make Gaya proud after winning)”?
It may be mentioned though that just a day earlier another BJP leader and its Member of Parliament from East Delhi, Manoj Tiwari  who is also a popular Bhojpuri cine artist, too had declared the lawmaker from Gaya as the next CM at an election rally in Gaya that was attended among others by at least three union ministers –    Ram Kripal Yadav (Minister for Drinking Water and Sanitation), Jayant Sinha (Minister of State for Finance), and Manoj Sinha (Minister of State for Railways) as well as Shahnawaz.
However, Tiwari being a political novice, not much weight was given to his words then but Shahanawaz’s cryptic words have set the rumour mills abuzz. Does this signal a marked change in the BJP’s strategy for Bihar.
Thus far the BJP had been campaigning on the development plank of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the PM was its mascot, slated to address around 40 election rallies in the five-phased state elections in Bihar.
So what could have prompted the BJP’s departure from its earlier stated position of not announcing its chief ministerial candidate in advance and throw up a name in public (what if Shahnawaz refuted the NDTV report. Tiwari had already taken Dr. Kumar’s as BJP’s CM choice  in public)?
Consider that the last time when the party projected a CM face – Kiran Bedi in Delhi – it had lost miserably. Isn’t it shy of repeating the same “mistake” again? But Bihar is a different ball game all together and unlike Bedi, who was a last minute entrant into politics, Dr Kumar is not just a veteran politician but he is also the party’s formidable face for the Extremely Backward Castes whose votes the BJP is eyeing to beat Lalu-Nitish’s OBC and Muslim factor. His supporters had already declared him as their choice for the CM post on social networking sites. Could the BJP ignore his claim particularly at a time when the BJP’s arch rival Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was seeking to overplay the BJP’s failure to project any CM candidate in Bihar – a state where cult personalities and castes do matter at the hustings.
Just a couple of days before the first phase of polling, Nitish, who is pitching for his third term as the chief minister, had tried to exploit the BJP’s indecision on its CM face, and stated: “Even today they have no candidate for the CM’s post. They keep saying we are contesting the elections under Modiji. They have no leader…The way in which the PM is holding rallies in Bihar, it seems there is such a dearth of leadership in the BJP.”
Another interpretation of the BJP’s indecision was that there were many contenders for the post and that there was serious in-fighting within the party in Bihar over the issue.
So wasn’t it a deft ploy of the BJP to make first Tiwari, and thereafter Shahnawaz play up Dr Kumar’s name? Can it be said that in a single stroke the BJP not only silenced the likes of Nitish, and send a strong message to the rivals for the top slot within the state BJP, but even managed to corner the large EBC voters by cryptically announcing Dr. Kumar’s name at the nick of time when the first phase of voting was just underway? In the process, it goes without saying that  Dr Kumar has emerged as even more powerful contender for the post.
It also appears that the strategy to prop up Dr Kumar’s name was a mid-way course correction by the BJP in the wake of a neck and neck contest between the NDA and the Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance considering that in the constituencies that went to polls in the first phase, Nitish’s JD(U) had won 29 seats as against the BJP’s 13 in the last assembly elections in 2010. The region thus could well be said a JD(U) stronghold despite the fact that in 2010, JD(U) was  an alliance partner of the BJP. (The Rashtriya Janata Dal which has now allied with the JD(U) had then won just four seats in the region and the other partner of present Mahagathbandhan, the Congress, had won just a solitary seat in 2010).
As it is, in these columns we had already mentioned Dr Kumar as the surprise package and a strong contender for the CM’s post in case the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance won in Bihar’s backwards dominated politics where the EBCs till now had no prominent face. But how will the likes of Sushil Modi, the BJP’s Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Legislative Council, and Nand Kishore Yadav, the BJP’s Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Assembly – both prominent OBC faces of the BJP and CM aspirants– take Dr Kumar’s candidature for the top post is to be seen. Dr Kumar’s supporters though now say that his candidature can “dovetail” with the development plank of PM Modi.
Overall, the first phase of polling could not have been so colourful only because of large voters’ turnout and record participation of women voters. The BJP propping up the name of Dr Kumar made it an event full of drama and suspense as four more rounds of electioneering still remain.

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