How INDIA lost Bihar: Vote splits and alliance mismanagement

By Jubil Das, Sandeep Pandey 

Since the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party, many secular and progressive individuals worry, before every election, about the division of secular votes. They urge secular parties to form alliances and field a single candidate against BJP or the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). However, this rarely materialises fully, and BJP eventually benefits from the split in votes among its opponents. Some opposition parties are even accused of indirectly helping BJP by contributing to this vote division.

Several analyses are being presented for the NDA’s spectacular victory in Bihar. NDA won 83% of the seats with less than half of the total vote share. In contrast, the party with the largest vote share—Rashtriya Janata Dal, with 1,15,46,055 votes (23%)—won only 10% of the seats. NDA secured 202 seats, while INDIA managed to win a mere 35.

This article does not examine the effect of the Rs. 10,000 payment to women before polling, the voting pattern of Extremely Backward Classes, or the appeal of INDIA’s jobs-in-every-family promise. Instead, we look quantitatively at how the alliance arithmetic worked and what might have been possible with a stronger alliance.

The NDA alliance remained solid, with only one seat—Marhaura—where it had no candidate. INDIA lacked candidates on three seats: Sugauli, Kusheshwar Asthan and Mohania. After its nomination was rejected, INDIA belatedly supported Ravi Shankar Paswan in Mohania, where he finished second.

While NDA partners did not contest against one another on any of the remaining 242 seats, INDIA partners fielded candidates against each other on 11 out of 240 seats (about 4.5%): Gaura Bauram, Kahalgaon, Kargahar, Narkatiaganj, Raja Pakar, Sikandra, Sultanganj, Vaishali, Bachhwara, Bihar Sharif, Chainpur and Beldaur. NDA won all of these. The Communist Party of India candidate directly caused the defeat of the Congress candidate in Bachhwara. The main partners, RJD and Congress, failed to achieve consensus and contested against each other in five seats, while Congress fought against alliance partners in 9 of the 11 overlapping seats. These so-called “friendly fights” proved self-defeating. Bachhwara, effectively gifted to NDA, should continue to haunt INDIA.

On at least two seats—Gobindpur and Parihar—INDIA likely lost due to rebel candidates, indicating poor candidate selection.

Had INDIA worked more seriously on alliance management, chosen candidates carefully, attempted to include parties previously aligned such as the Bahujan Samaj Party and Aam Aadmi Party, and reached out to Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen—who share much of the same vote base—the alliance could potentially have added around 25 seats. AIMIM alone could have contributed about 10 seats. Bringing in Jan Suraj Party could have increased the tally by about 54. Prashant Kishor would likely have leaned towards INDIA, despite Jan Suraj damaging INDIA more than NDA. Jan Suraj acted as spoiler on 18 seats for INDIA and 13 for NDA.

But INDIA’s alliance managers failed to build a broader and cohesive front, and the resulting vote split left RJD, Congress and CPI (Marxist-Leninist) in a weakened state. The steep reduction in CPI(ML) seats is particularly surprising, given its strong grassroots support and performance in the last assembly election.

Well-wishers of secular unity should advise the Congress to act more responsibly. If it repeats the indiscipline seen in Bihar—contesting 9 seats against its own partners—the alliance will be taken even less seriously. Congress has a greater stake in the national alliance than any other partner. Progressive forces must persuade secular parties within INDIA to work cohesively so that BJP cannot take advantage of vote division. NDA has clarity in its strategy, whereas INDIA appeared confused and unable to finalise seat-sharing even after the first phase of nominations closed.

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The authors are associated with the Socialist Party (India)