In Bihar, a battle between local factors and national narrative
many areas. We are hoping that upper caste candidates from our party and the Congress will be able to break away upper caste votes of the BJP. We are insisting on seats for candidates like Mukesh Sahni, a Nishad, from Darbhanga, because he can get us EBC votes which would otherwise have gone to the BJP.” In addition, he claimed, that left parties — the Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India (ML) — have pockets of influence among landless Dalits in particular.
He also suggested that there has been rising disillusionment with Nitish Kumar even among his older supporters from backward groups. This will help bring them towards the alliance, especially in the 17 seats the Janata Dal-united is contesting.
This is an attractive plan on paper. But it relies on three elements. The first is, of course, that the alliance takes formal shape. At the time of writing, there persists intense wrangling between the Congress and RJD in particu- lar, with the latter alleging that the Congress is punching above its weight.
The second premise is that local candidates of the alliance, who are non-muslim and non-yadavs, have enough appeal within other social bases to be able to wrest away these votes from the BJP.
And the final premise is that elections will primarily be about local factors and arithmetic.
If winning over other social groups is one formidable challenge, the other is establishing some kind of narrative dominance. Across constituencies, the BJP’S messaging — of a strong leader in the form of Modi, of decisive action and “revenge” against Pakistan, of work in rural areas, of steps to take on corruption — can be heard. This messaging has percolated to the ground due to the party’s organisational apparatus, propaganda machine and mass media.
An opposition leader in Bihar admits, “We had and have a powerful narrative in the form of unemployment and farm distress. But we have somehow not been able to establish it strongly enough on the ground.”
And the final challenge for the alliance now is time. Bihar has large constituencies, many with over 1.5 million voters. Elections are three weeks away. And candidates in most seats are not even clear.
Admittedly, neither is the list of candidates from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) out. But given the reliance of the opposition alliance on local candidates, as opposed to the BJP’S focus on the national narrative and the organisational machine helping it, it is perhaps even more urgent for the alliance to declare its candidates.
With a strong social base, and a degree of anti incumbency against the state government, the opposition in Bihar has ground to build on. But the limits of its social coalition, alliance troubles, lack of leadership and narrative means that the NDA has an edge.