The grand alliance of the RJD, the Congress and four other parties in Bihar failed to stop the BJP-led NDA’s march in the State that started in 2014. With the JD(U) joining hands, the NDA’s voter base strengthened to decimate the Yadav-Muslim social combination of the UPA.

The infighting within the RJD camp also helped the NDA, as Yadav votes got divided in several constituencies. The alliance was leading in just one out of the 40 seats in the State.

In most of the seats, as the counting was progressing, the NDA candidates had a lead of about two lakh votes on an average. In the prestigious Patna Sahib constituency, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad led with a margin of 2.78 lakh votes aginst Shatrughan Sinha of the Congress. In 2014, Sinha, when he was with the BJP, had won the seat with a margin of more than 2.65 lakh votes.

In the adjoining Patliputra, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s daughter Misa Bharti was trailing by a margin of about 50,000 votes. She lost to sitting MP Ram Kirpal Yadav by about 40,000 votes in 2014.

In Saran, senior BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy has tripled his 2014 margin.

In Begusarai, senior BJP leader and Minister of State in the Modi Cabinet Giriraj Singh defeated CPI’s Kanhaiya Kumar with a margin of more than four lakh votes. This contest had attracted a lot of media attention. The RJD was relegated to the third position in the seat.

In Gaya, former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi was defeated by JD(U)’s Vijay Kumar. In Arrah, former Home Secretary and MoS in Modi Cabinet RK Singh had a comfortable victory for the second time.

Rashtriya Lok Samta Party’s Upendra Kushwaha, a former partner of the NDA who joined the UPA camp ahead of the elections, lost from both the Karakat and Ujiarpur seats.

In Ujiarpur, BJP state president Nityanand Rai defeated him, while in Karakat, Dulal Chandra Goswami of JD(U) defeated him.

Kishanganj was the lone seat where the grand alliance was leading, where Congress candidate Mohammed Jawed was ahead.

Leadership vacuum

Apart from the caste combinations, the question of leadership also haunted the alliance. The fight between siblings Tejaswi Yadav, Tej Pratap Yadav and Misa Bharti created confusion not just among the voters but among the RJD workers too. The alliance, from the beginning, failed to put up a joint front against the NDA.

Lalu Prasad Yadav’s absence also impacted badly, on the alliance.

The NDA, on the other hand, consolidated its base despite RLSP walking out of the alliance.

The seat sharing talks went off smoothly, but in the UPA camp, the bargaining went on for about a month.

Keeping the Left parties out also impacted the alliance adversely in the State.

The results indicate that the RJD failed to win the Yadav votes even from its pocket boroughs.

The Muslim votes also went to the NDA through the JD(U) and the LJP.

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