नवीनतम
Bihar Poll: JDU vote share rises, RJD retains its voter base
PATNA [Maha Media]: With the Bihar Assembly election results out, the focus has shifted towards the vote share of the political parties. Chief minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United (JDU) registered a sharp jump of around five percent in its vote share indicating that the sops showered on voters did the magic. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) saw a slight increase in its vote share.
On the other hand, the Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) kept its vote share intact while contesting almost the same number of seats as in the 2020 polls, indicating that the support for it did not increase, despite all the hullabaloo over unemployment in the state.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) landed a huge win by bagging 202 seats. The BJP won 89, JDU 85, Union minister Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) took 19, Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) clinched five, while Rajya Sabha member Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) got four.
The NDA victory is being considered a landslide one as it won 77 seats more than the 125 it had clinched in the 2020 Assembly polls.
As far as the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) or Mahagathbandhan is concerned, it could win just 35 seats, with its lead party Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) managing 25, while the Congress bagged six, CPIML two, CPI(M) one, and India Inclusive Party (IIP) one.
The Mahagathbandhan lost 75 seats this time in comparison to 110 it had won in the 2020 Assembly elections.
Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM repeated its 2020 performance by winning five seats, while the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) managed to grab one seat.
There were two biggest losers – poll consultant-turned-politician Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) and Mukesh Sahni's Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP). Both were wiped out from the poll slate, putting them into existential crisis.
If we consider the vote share of the two alliances, NDA got 46.53 percent of total polled votes, reflecting a sharp rise from its vote share of 37.26 percent in the 2020 polls. On the other hand, the INDIA bloc got around 38 percent. Its vote share was 37.23 percent in 2020.
However, this time the NDA constituents polled around 8.5 percent more votes in comparison to the INDIA partners.
The BJP emerged as the largest single party in Bihar for the first time since its inception in 1980. Its vote share was 20.08 percent, a tad higher than its 19.46 percent in the 2020 Assembly polls, when it had won 74 seats.
Notably, the saffron party had contested lesser seats this time – 101 in comparison to 110 in 2020, suggesting that its support base became stronger because the vote share also has direct correlation with the number of seats contested.
The JDU vote share this time was 19.25 percent – a sharp increase in comparison to 15.39 percent it had registered in the 2020 polls. The change was clearly reflected in the number of seats won – 85 against 43 last time – a jump of 42 seats.
The vote share of LJP(R) notched a vote share of 4.97 percent while contesting 28 seats. It was lower than the 5.66 percent votes it got in 2020, when it had contested 134 seats, but indicated that the votes of allies were smoothly transferred to its candidates.
HAM(S) contested six seats, won five, and had a vote share of 1.17 percent. RLM contested six, won four, and had a vote share of 1.06 percent.
"There is no clear-cut formula or correlation between vote share and number of seats won. But one thing is clear – the vote share of JDU jumped by around four percent due to the freebies and sops in the run-up to the polls. It affected every section of the society, especially the women. Nitish has now firmly added women voters to his base of EBC (extremely backward castes) voters," Rajiv Kumar, Bihar state coordinator of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) told ETV Bharat.
Rajiv added that the elections held in different parts of the country over the past couple of years are reflecting a direct correlation between freebies and poll results – setting up a bad precedent.
"Previously, freebies were distributed stealthily through the backdoor among the voters at the time of polls. Now it is being done openly through the front door. This is setting up a wrong precedence and needs to be reformed," the ADR official said.
He also pointed out that Kishor's JSP dented the vote share of the NDA, though it did not benefit it much, except the fact that the latter's vote percentage and seat tally could have been a bit higher.
In INDIA bloc, the RJD vote share was almost intact at 23 percent in comparison to the 23.11 percent it received in the 2020 polls. It contested 143 seats this time as against 144 seats last time. But the number of seats won declined from 75 to 25 due to a stronger performance by the NDA.
"The RJD performance shows that it has been able to protect its Muslim-Yadav vote base, but also indicates that relying completely on it will not be of much use if you do not garner the support of other caste and community groups," Rajiv said.
As far as the Congress is concerned, it contested on 61 seats with a vote share of 8.71 percent. It had contested 70 seats in 2020 and had a vote share 9.48 percent. The number of seats won fell to six from 19 in the previous polls.
The Left parties contested 33 seats this time and their combined vote share was 4.18 percent. The CPIML led the table with 2.84 percent. Their vote share was 4.64 percent in 2020, when they had contested 29 seats. However, the number of seats they won fell to 3 this time in comparison to 16 last time.
The VIP contested 12, won nil and had a vote share of 1.37 percent. Its Mukesh Sahni was INDIA bloc’s deputy chief ministerial candidate.
The AIMIM contested 25, won five, and notched a vote share of 1.85 percent. The BSP contested 130 seats, won one, and bagged a vote share of 1.62 percent.
Prashant Kishor's JSP contested 238 seats and got a vote share of 3.34 percent without winning any of them.
Incidentally, 1.81 percent of voters opted for NOTA (None Of The Above) while voting in the just concluded Assembly polls – which was more than several parties that put up their candidates.
