Political realignments to keep NDA, JD(U)-RJD leaders engaged before Bihar polls

NEW DELHI: Political realignments has queered the electoral battlefield in Bihar at the macro level and assembly-wise rivalries among potential candidates is set to keep political bosses of NDA and JD(U)-RJD engaged till the last minute.

Constituency-wise analysis of potential ticket claimants on the basis of 2010 assembly elections results suggests that that anti-BJP camp (RJD-JDU-Congress-NCP alliance) will be almost five times more saddled with assembly-wise bickering over tickets as compared to the BJP-led NDA camp. The analysis of 2010 assembly election results suggest that two of the parties from the current anti-BJP camp were in the winner and runner up position in as many as 99 assembly segments. In contrast, there are only 21 assembly segments where NDA parties were in direct contest.

What is worse, 72 of these 99 contentious assembly segments of the anti-BJP camp are from the assembly segments where their cumulative votes from 2014 Lok Sabha elections present them in a winner position. A previous analysis by ET had indicated that the cumulative votes of anti-BJP parties in winning position in 160 assembly segments as compared to NDA votes in those seats during 2014 elections. Thus, 72 seats (about 45 per cent) of their 160 potential winning seats will be bitterly contested for candidate selection given two of the parties were in direct contest in these seats making either party a claimant for ticket on those seats.

In contrast, 17 of the potential winning seats for the NDA on the basis of 2014 votes will be hotly contested for ticket claimants as BJP and LJP were in direct contest in these seats. This small number of clearly contentious seats for the BJP, which is still to work out the seat-sharing agreement with LJP, RLSP and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s party, provides little more comfort than the rival anti-BJP grand alliance. BJP, in fact, hopes that this large number of contentious seats in the rival camp will provide them an advantage during assembly elections as the candidate denied ticket may try to sabotage official candidate of the anti-BJP grand alliance.