Current Affairs (66th BPSC): Bihar Assembly Election-2020

Bihar Assembly Election-2020:

• Held against the backdrop of the pandemic, the Bihar contest was also one of the closest in recent times.
• The Bihar Legislative Assembly election was held in three phases through October–November to elect members to the Seventeenth Bihar Legislative Assembly. The term of the previous Sixteenth Legislative Assembly of Bihar ended on 29 November 2020.
  • Outlined in Article 168 of the Constitution of India, the Bihar Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral legislature of Bihar.
  • The tenure of the Legislative Assembly is five years from the date appointed for its first sitting unless dissolved sooner.
• The counting of votes began on 10 November 2020 and the incumbent National Democratic Alliance emerged as the winner with 125 elected MLAs, whereas the principal opposition coalition of Mahagathbandhan won 110 seats.
• After the elections, the incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was elected as the leader of the National Democratic Alliance in Bihar and was sworn in again as Chief Minister, whereas two new deputy Chief Ministers, Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi were inducted to the new ministry.

Key issues:

• To the MGB’s credit, the strategy to put unemployment at the heart of its campaign did work in its favour.
  • Due to the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, thousands of migrant laborers were forced to return to their home states due to lack of work. The issue of unemployment was main issue especially for them.
• While more than one-third of voters (36%) identified development as the most important poll issue, one-fifth (20%) focused on lack of jobs.
• Most important issues: (as per a survey)
  • 
• Among voters for whom the job crisis mattered the most, the MGB ended up securing over half the votes and leading the NDA by a massive margin. Thus, by promising 10 lakh jobs to voters, Tejashwi did sway the vote of these voters.
• However the attractiveness of that promise got eclipsed by the grand narrative of vikas — those voters for whom development was the key issue mostly voted for the NDA.
  • Thus the MGB raised the right issues but was not able to convert it into results.

Major political parties and Alliance:

• National Democratic Alliance:
  • It is headed by the chief minister Nitish Kumar and comprising the Janata Dal (United), the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindustani Awam Morcha, the Vikassheel Insaan Party.
    • Earlier, the Lok Janshakti Party, which was part of NDA, quit the alliance stating that they would contest all seats against the Janata Dal (United) but not against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
• Mahagathbandhan:
  • It is the main opposition political coalition comprising primarily the United Progressive Alliance members Rashtriya Janata Dal and Indian National Congress along with left–wing parties such as CPI and CPI (M).
• Grand Democratic Secular Front:
  • It included Rashtriya Lok Samta Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, Samajwadi Janata Dal Democratic etc.
• Others: There are a number of other smaller parties and coalitions contesting the election. As of January 2020, there were 120 unrecognised registered parties in Bihar.
  • Another noteworthy alliances Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA) consists of Pappu Yadav’s Jan Adhikar Party, Chandrashekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party, Social Democratic Party of India and Bahujan Mukti Party.

Voting:

• The elections were conducted amid the COVID-19 pandemic with the necessary guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India.
  • The authorities also passed the guidelines over limited people to be involved in the rallies.
  • Due to COVID-19, the polling time will be increased by one hour and was held from 7am to 6pm, except in Naxalite–Maoist insurgency affected areas.
  • As per guidelines, maximum number of voters per polling station was reduced from 1,500 to 1,000.
  • Arrangements were made for 7 lakh units of hand sanitisers, 46 lakh masks, 6 lakh PPE kits, 6.7 lakh face shields, and 23 lakh single use gloves.
• The overall voter turnout in this election has been 57.05%, which is 0.39% more than the 56.66% in 2015 assembly polls.
  • A total of 59.58% female voted compared to 54.68% voter turnout of males.
• Vote transfer within alliances:
  • It is clear that many BJP traditional voters stayed away from the NDA in JD(U)-contested seats.
  • The survey indicates that in BJP-contested seats, three-fourths of traditional BJP supporters voted for the NDA, whereas in JD(U)-contested seats, the support shown by BJP supporters for the NDA candidate was just over 50%.
  • In such seats, the LJP seems to be have swung a segment of the traditional BJP voters in its favour, thus damaging the prospects of the JD(U) candidates.
  • Despite the MGB losing, the survey shows that vote transfer among MGB alliance partners was more or less smooth with Congress and RJD supporters voting for each other’s candidates in almost equal measure.
• Youth vote and gender:
  • Although joblessness was a major poll issue, particularly for the youth, it did not lead to a significant advantage for the MGB among young voters on the whole as the MGB got nearly the same proportion of votes from the 18-39 age group as the NDA.
  • This happened because of a gender divide in voting preferences. The youth swing for RJD was, in a sense, mostly limited to young men and not so much young women.
  • The constituencies with higher female turnout than male, the NDA was in lead. Out of the 125 seats that NDA won, 99 were constituencies where female turnout was more than their male counterparts.
  • Upper caste, Kurmi, Koeri and EBC women were far more likely to vote for the NDA than men from these communities. However, no such trend was noticed among Yadavs and Muslims with respect to the NDA.
• Two competing consolidations:
  • The elections seem to have witnessed two competing consolidations —
    • Yadavs and Muslims on the side of the MGB, and
    • upper castes, Kurmi-Koeris and EBCs on the side of the NDA,
    • with Dalits being the swing vote.
  • Muslims and Yadavs, RJD’s traditional voters, consolidated in a major way behind the MGB. However, to be able to make a bid for power, the MGB needed an MY+. The alliance with the Communist parties was a crucial factor.
    • According to a survey, Dalits vote came to the MGB in early phases but in the
  • Within the Dalit community, support for the MGB was restricted to the Ravidas community and the Dusadhs. Musahars, however, mostly voted for the NDA.
  • The NDA also got four-fifths of votes from Kurmis, the community to which Nitish belongs, and nearly three-fifths of the EBC vote.

Results:

• Slow counting this time:
  • To maintain social distancing, the Commission had capped the maximum number of voters per booth at 1,000 — down from 1,500 in 2015. This prompted a 63% increase in the number of polling stations — from 65,367 in 2015 to 1,06,526.
  • More polling stations means more Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). More EVMs means a longer wait for the final result. It is this which is causing counting to be slower than usual.
  • Further, there has also been an increase in the number of votes polled through postal ballots — from 1.3 lakh in 2015 to 2.5 lakh.
  • There’s no change in the counting process. There is, however, a change in the layout of the counting hall. The number of tables at each counting hall has been limited to seven, as opposed to 14 under normal circumstances, to follow social distancing norms. To maintain the same speed of counting (that is 14 EVMs per round), the EC has increased the number of counting halls from 38 to 55.
• NDA secured a total of 125 seats (37.26% votes) while MGB won 110 seats (37.23% votes). GDSF got 6 seats, LJP & others won a seat each.
  • he results surprised many analysts and polling agencies that predicted MGB to win. Only agency to correctly predict the Bihar election results was Politique Marquer that had predicted a narrow majority for NDA.
  • Rashtriya Janata Dal won in 75 constituencies and became the largest political party in the Legislative Assembly, however its numbers reduced compared to previous election.
  • The Bharatiya Janata Party won 74 seats and was the biggest gainer in terms of number of MLAs elected as it added more than 30% to its seat count compared to the last election.
  • The Janata Dal (United) and Indian National Congress won in 43 and 19 constituencies respectively.
  • The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) also made inroads in the state winning 5 seats. All the 5 MLAs of AIMIM were elected from constituencies in the Muslim dominated Seemanchal region of the State.
  • The Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) (Liberation) won 12 seats, whereas the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India won 2 seats each.
  • The Vikassheel Insaan Party which contested the Assembly elections for the first time won 4 seats.
  • Sumit Kumar Singh was the only Independent candidate to win as a MLA.
• About 20% of the seats, the margin of victory was less than 2.5% of the votes polled. The NDA won 21 seats with a less than 2.5% vote margin, while the Mahagathbandhan won in 22 such seats.
• Following the results, Tejashwi claimed to have “won 130 seats” and that “the mandate was in our favour, but the Election Commission’s results were declared in favour of NDA”.
  • He claimed, that the MGB “lost about 20 seats” because of “irregularities” in counting of postal ballots and threatened to move to court.
  • The Election Commission termed the claims unfounded, adding that, according to procedure, the postal ballots including the invalid ones were re-verified where the margin of victory was less than the number of rejected ballots.
• According to analysts BJP has become more significant in the state than before.

Major reasons behind the NDA victory:

• Despite the fatigue and anti-incumbency factor against chief minister and a perception of laggard pace of development in his last term, the NDA managed to woo the voters and retain rule.
• Caste and Community equation:
  • If the rival Mahagathbandhan comprising Tejashwi Yadav-led RJD and the Congress banked upon Muslim and Yadav (MY) voters, the NDA mainly consolidated the Kurmis (Nitish Kumar’s caste), Extremely Backward Castes (EBC) and upper castes (BJP’s vote bank) in general and polarised the Hindu votes in particular.
• Vote Bank:
  • Due to the various schemes targeting them, the women and youth came out in large numbers to vote. The NDA feels the increased poll percentage of women voters went in their favour. In the 2015 Bihar assembly elections, their vote had got divided between Nitish and Modi. However, a sizeable chunk of women votes went to the NDA as both BJP and JD(U) joined hands again in these elections.
• Emotive appeal:
  • The emotive appeals made by both Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi seem to have struck a chord with the voters. Just a couple of days before the last phase of election, the Bihar CM said it was his last election. This statement was considered an emotional appeal to the voters.
  • Modi, on the other hand, reminded the people of the “Jungle Raj” (an epithet used by the Supreme Court for the 15-year misrule of RJD). The voters may have ignored voting on caste or communal lines and instead voted on governance issues.
• Multi-cornered contests:
  • The anti-NDA votes got split due to multi-cornered contests. The core vote bank of Mahagathbandhan got divided because candidates of several parties, such as Puppu Yadav’s Jan Adhikar Party, Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM and Upendra Kushwaha-headed RLSP, coming into the fray.
  • e.g. the RJD’s votes got split in its stronghold of North Bihar regions – Seemanchal and Mithilanchal.
• Cash transfer schemes:
  • Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) schemes for several sections of the society may have proved a game-changer. Both centre and state government launched several schemes in the wake of the coronavirus disease outbreak.
  • The centre launched one of the largest cash transfer schemes for transferring cash into the Jan Dhan accounts of women in April. Over Rs 30,000 crore were deposited into the accounts of women. Besides this, over Rs 5000 crore were deposited into linked LPG connections. Apart from these, Rs 500 were transferred into women’s accounts for three months.
  • A number of other steps included an increase in MNREGA wage to Rs 202 a day from Rs 182, which benefitted 13.62 crore families; ex-gratia of Rs 1,000 to 3 crore poor widows, poor disabled and poor senior citizens.
  • Under the PM Kisan Yojana, centre deposited Rs 2,000 to farmers account in the first week of April under the PM Kisan Yojana. This benefitted 8.7 crore farmers.
  • The Bihar government also took several measures to deposit cash in the accounts of the needy people.
    • It extended insurance cover of Rs 50 lakh per health worker fighting COVID-19.
    • The state government deposited Rs 1,000 each into the bank accounts of 6.75 lakh migrant workers who were stranded outside the state.
    • It also deposited Rs 1,000 in the bank accounts of ration card holders.
• Apart from the above factors, the popularity of both P.M and C.M. among different sections of society also played its role in the victory of the NDA.

One worrying trend in this election result was the increased percentage of the MLA with the criminal charges on them. The NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), have highlighted that about 68 per centof MLAs (i.e.. 163 in all) stand accused of criminal acts, which is 10 per cent more than the ratio in the outgoing assembly. Of the 163 MLAs with criminal charges, 123, or half the total MLAs, have been booked for serious offences. This trend common in all the parties, the single largest party, RJD, has 54 alleged criminal MLAs out of 74 (73 per cent), while the BJP has 47 such MLAs out of 73 (64 per cent).
Note that the Bihar election was the first since the Supreme Court told political parties in February to publish the details of their candidates with criminal allegations, and the reasons why they were given tickets.