The already complicated political landscape of Bihar has become even more complex this time with the entry of poll strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor and his Jan Suraaj party. The new entity named candidates for all 243 seats in the Bihar Assembly elections – the only party to do so – lending credence to Kishor’s claim that he is out to create a third alternative to Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar, and coalitions led by them, that have dominated the state for decades.
So, it’s clear that Kishor and the Jan Suraaj will be a factor, but can he be the X-factor for the Bihar elections? And how much of an impact will he really have?
In an election special, Bihar Battleground, on Tuesday, NDTV CEO and Editor-in-Chief Rahul Kanwal spoke to psephologists, experts and political leaders to analyse exactly this, and dissected the Kishor factor through number-crunching.
Data reveals that a meaningful conversion of votes to seats at the state level in Bihar will happen if a party manages to get 8% of the vote share. A 15% vote share, data suggests, can lead to 25 or more seats for Jan Suraaj and 18% can mean 40 or more seats. So, a vote share of 18% would mean that Kishor and Jan Suraaj would have a very significant impact, ending up with over 15% of the state’s 243 Assembly seats.
A war-gaming of scenarios shows that if Prashant Kishor gets 12% of the vote share but takes only 20% of that from the NDA and 80% from the Mahagathbandhan, the JDU-BJP alliance will end up with 199 seats, based on the 2020 performance, while the RJD-Congress coalition will be left with just 30.
If the situation flips, though, and the same 12% vote share is taken with 80% from the NDA and 20% from the Mahagathbandhan, the RJD-Congress alliance would be ahead, with 119 seats – just three shy of the majority mark – and the NDA would get 110.
A larger vote share would, thus, mean even greater ramifications for both alliances.
Parties’ Take
When this data was placed before senior BJP leader and one of the party’s best-known voices from Bihar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, he said Kishor is making “noise”, which is actually helping the NDA.
“For over 25 years, Bihar elections have been divided between forces with Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar-NDA… PK is making a lot of noise, which is good for a democracy, but the situation on the ground is settled. The NDA is going to get a convincing majority. Ground reports suggest Nitish Kumar is receiving the sympathy factor. The Narendra Modi factor is also important, and their joint efforts towards a developed Bihar are resonating with the electorate,” he said.
Photo Credit: ANI
“The more Prashant Kishor makes noise, the more the choices become clear. He is also forced to expose ‘jungle raj’ and Lalu Yadav’s corruption and misrule. After 20 years in power, Nitish Kumar has maintained his simplicity without any taint. On the ground, people say ‘Nitishwa theeke hai, theek kaam kare hai’ (Nitish Kumar has done a good job).
Prasad said that while youth in Bihar have only seen Nitish Kumar as chief minister and may not be aware of the alleged “jungle raj” when Lalu Yadav was in power, they have heard about it from their families and will vote accordingly.
Dismissing the “noise” argument, Jan Suraaj leader Pawan Varma said what the BJP is hearing is actually a quiet revolution.
“Jan Suraaj is not a spoiler, it is an alternative. Jan Suraaj has support from youth – 58% of Bihar is under the age of 35. And 28% of Biharis have not voted for any of the two coalitions. If Jan Suraaj gets 10% from the NDA and the Mahagathbandhan, his vote share could be 40-odd per cent,” Varma said.
The Congress’ Sachin Pilot, a former deputy chief minister of Rajasthan, said while Kishor has worked very hard and visited many parts of the state, every political leader does that.
“Bihar is a complicated state, with several parties contesting. It will be a Mahagathbandhan vs NDA fight. I don’t want to discount anyone but, historically, a lot of votes have gone to the third option, and it is not a new phenomenon. People are looking for a change and the most viable option is the Mahagathbandhan… Young people want a viable alternative and jobs, and we are targeting that with our commitments and manifesto,” he said.
‘The Better He Does…’
Election analyst Amitabh Tiwari said that the non-NDA, non-Mahagathbandhan parties of Bihar already have a healthy vote share already and Prashant Kishor is emerging as the chief ministerial face of ‘others’. This means, he said, that the poll strategist-turned-politician will also impact the vote shares of other parties more than the NDA or the Mahagathbandhan.
Tiwari pointed out that while Kishor is getting traction among the youth, the educated middle class and a section of the poor, he is not likely to win, but play the role of a spoiler, like the LJP did in 2020.
“There are 83 seats where the victory margin was less than or equal to 5% (of the total votes) in 2020. 37 were won by the NDA, 38 by the Mahagathbandhan, and seven by others. If, on these seats, he (Kishor) gets a vote share of 5 per cent or more, he is likely to damage the coalitions. The better Jan Suraaj does, the closer the election will be; the worse he does, the more one-sided the election is likely to be,” the analyst said.