Exit polls are usually criticised for amplifying the degree of probable scenarios. Political projections by any incumbent power, too, have a permitted scope for self-aggrandisement—it is not expected of them to err on the side of modesty. But the Bihar result has far surpassed both these genres of expression, one statistical and the other rhetorical, in terms of its sheer unanimity of voice.
Eleven exit polls had predicted a victory for the NDA, with the most-quoted high being around the 170-seat mark. Union Home Minister Amit Shah had pegged it at 160. At the time of writing this, the trends are giving the NDA an incredible 200-plus seats in the 243-seat assembly. The BJP seems set to win 89. That’s a win percentage of like degree; it contested only 101 seats. The Janata Dal (United), which also contested 101 seats, has done worse only when seen against that superlative number.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, whose age and health were beginning to be commented upon, has very nearly doubled his 2020 tally of 43. The opposition has crashed to what seems like an all-time low—with the Rashtriya Janata Dal plummeting by two-thirds in terms of seats to below 30, and the Congress looking less like a national party and more suited to join a ‘critically endangered species’ list.
What explains such a seismic pro-incumbency wave? Clearly, there were more issues on the mind of the Bihar voter than the grand narratives spun by the opposition.
The Congress could gracefully take the larger part of the blame here—it hijacked a pre-poll campaign space with an abstract theme like vote chori, nearly sidelining Tejashwi Yadav in the process, then clamouring for far more tickets than its zero ground strength would justify, and then refusing to name Tejashwi the CM candidate till the last minute. What the voter also sees is material change all around herself—Bihar is a tangibly different place today than it was 20 years ago.
The huge women’s turnout justifies the gender assigned to the voter. The payout of ₹10,000 on election eve is not a one-off, nor to be denigrated as a dole. It comes on the back of years of careful and graded empowerment from the panchayat level up. The next government now has the unimpeded mandate to improve their livelihood indices.