The political implications of Bihar Election result for the whole Country
Arun Kumar Mishra
THE unprecedented victory of NDA in Bihar, including the highest number of seats won by BJP ever in the state, has made it loud and clear that to win the election, BJP will employ all the dirty tricks which it has in abundance.
The print media has tried to surpass all others in praising the NDA constituents, particularly BJP for leading the alliance to such a spectacular victory. The invincibility of Nitish Kumar by carving out a strong influence among the OBC, EBC, Dalits and women in particular, has also received high praise by reputed newspapers.
Transferring Rs 10 thousand to women’s bank accounts, 125 units of free electricity, enhancing honorariums of scheme workers and several such sops on the eve of election are being called as master stroke which got translated into votes, leaving, the Mahagathbandhan combination way behind.
Micro-management of the NDA combination in a well-co-ordinated manner has also received praise from almost all the newspapers published from the state and national capital, whereas the lacklustre campaign and lack of co-ordination among the Mahagathbandhan constituents has rightly been pointed out.
All these factors, and much more, have already been documented but what is missing is the impact of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and its impact on the legitimate voters whose names were deleted while fake voters and even dead voters names were included in the voters lists.
What is ignored in all these analyses is the complete complicity of the Election Commission in giving free hand to BJP and its allies to carry out their nefarious game under the gaze of Home Minister Amit Shah. All the top guns of BJP had camped in Bihar to manage the whole election process with the help of the administration and the organisational network at their command. PM Modi himself made the whole election a farce by indulging in wild allegations against the Mahagathbandhan like ‘sheltering the intruders’ and Rohingyas in Bihar. The spectre of the return of Jungle Raj with caricature of certain songs in his trademark style marked a new low in political discourse. Yogi Adityanath brazenly indulged in communalising the atmosphere with his counter parts from Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh chipping in.
What is being ignored is the role of money – not only the cash transfers by the government but directly bribing the voters through distributing envelopes with the name and symbol of the candidates and crisp Rs 500 notes inside.
The entire workforce of women working as “Jeevika didi’s” was forced to bring all those women voters to the polling booths who had received Rs 10 thousand. On polling day, they were seen in every area and booth.
Special trains were arranged from Haryana and Punjab for migrant workers and tickets and other arrangements were made by the BJP so that they can vote in Bihar.
Many instances of programming of voting machines in NDA’s favour were also reported.
So, what appears on the surface is only half the story. We must analyse this unexpected result, diving deep into the many layered conspiracy by the Sangh Parivar. The election result of Bihar should be seen as the ongoing agenda of RSS and its political wing BJP to usher in “Hindi Rashtra”.
Left parties and the secular democratic forces have to ponder the situation and must derive a correct lesson to confront RSS/BJP head on.
Despite the adverse situation and all sorts of manipulations, CPI(M) candidates received substantial number of votes wining one seat of Vibhutipur and remaining runners up in the rest three constituencies.
AC Candidate Party Total Vote Received Win Margin Loss Margin Vote %
1. 138-Vibhutipur Ajay Kumar CPI(M) 79246 10281 40.37
2. 84-Hayaghat Shyam Bharti CPI(M) 65383 11839 38.68
3. 114-Manjhi Satyendra Yadav CPI(M) 58668 9787 33.02
4. 17-Pipra Rajmangal Prasad CPI(M) 99677 10745 40.74
