Brokerages see Nitish Kumar winning in Bihar

MUMBAI: Although the financial market wants an NDA win in the ongoing state polls in Bihar, on the ground, the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance), led by Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav, appears to have made inroads since the polls began, officials at some of the top brokerage houses who toured the state suggest.

Two separate on-the-ground surveys, one led by Gautam Trivedi, CEO, Religare Capital Markets, and another Siddhartha Sanyal, chief India economist, Barclays, found out that GA has some advantage over NDA as the Nitish-Lalu alliance scores with women voters due to improved law and order situation. Religare's team also found that to a large extent, which it said was due to the freedom of mobility for the family that came from free bicycle scheme for the girl child, a popular scheme started by the ruling JD(U) government under Nitish Kumar.

However, to Nitish's disadvantage, young voters, for whom employment is a top priority, may vote for Narendra Modi-led NDA as "improved law & order situation has failed to create jobs", said Trivedi. He also said that although voters in Bihar should vote for development, but caste still seems to be the dominant deciding factor, a finding that is echoed by another report from Kotak Institutional Equities.

The teams led by Trivedi travelled in Bihar during the last week of October while Sanyal's team was in the state in the second week of last month, and the team from Kotak Institutional Equities in the first week of October.
According to Trivedi, although employment seems to be one of the top deciding factors for their votes, a large number of men have already migrated out of the state and are not coming home to vote. Had they cast their votes, NDA may have had a higher share of votes. Other factors which are tilting the balance in favour of Nitish are improved infrastructure in the states which include roads and power supply, absence of any anti-incumbency factor, Mahagathbandhan's projection of Nitish as the CM while NDA has none. The comment by Mohan Bhagwat about doing away with reservation has also hurt BJP's chances in Bihar, especially among the youth from the categories eligible for jobs under reserved categories, brokerage house officials said.