There is a joke doing rounds on social media that people are talking about USA elections but not Bihar elections because it is too middle class. It is other way round, Bihar Polls are too complicated for everyone to understand.. Please read on..
Assume yourself as a voter in Bihar and you have to decide whom to vote. You have to consider a lot of factors before you decide.
Sample this .. NDA is fighting against UPA.. NDA is led by Nitish Kumar who leads JD(U), which was founded by Nitish and Sharad Yadav, but Sharad Yadav is not with JD(U) anymore. He is in a separate party Loktantrik Janta Dal which is now not part of NDA or UPA. But his daughter is now a candidate from Congress, which is a part of UPA.
NDA in Bihar is different from NDA in Delhi as Chirag Paswan led Loktantrik Janta Party , (which is different from Loktanatrik Janata Dal led by Sharad Yadav) is part of NDA in Delhi but not part of NDA in Bihar but fighting separately. They will again become part of NDA if NDA wins polls and forms the government. Other party JD(u) which is part of NDA in Bihar and shares cabinet posts in Bihar , is part of NDA in center but not part of cabinet.
There is another party called Plurals which is led by a new lady on the block Ms. Pushpam Priya. Before you think her of an independent variable, You shouls know this.. Her father is a JDU leader who supports Nitish Kumar. Just to add to all these variables, we have Laloo Ji’s daughter in law supporting Nitish kumar as CM. She stayed in ex-CM nivas till very recently yet she but didn’t canvas in assembly seat where her estranged husband Tej Pratap is contesting. Her relationship and political affiliation, both are complicated, which one is more complicated that you have to figure out.
Now lets consider UPA also known as Mahaghbandhan, it is led by Rashtriya Janata Dal and its leader Tejaswi Yadav. Last time Mahagathbandhan included JD(u) ( which is a mother party of HAM led by Jiten Ram Manjhi) but this time JDU is part of NDA. HAM party was initially part of NDA, separated from JDU , became apart of Mahagathbandhan, now back to NDA but did not merge with JDU but still supporting Nitish Kumar.
Mahagathbandhan also includes left parties( let us call left parties just to keep it simple), these left parties fought against both UPA and NDA last time but wanted to support UPA later, however they lost as they didn’t get the unofficial support which was promised to them by RJD. Now they are in alliance with RJD. Another party called VIP was with Mahagathbandhan till the date of seat sharing announcement but left in between the press conference and joined NDA.
People are often simplifying when they are saying that it is an election between 15 years of Laloo Rabri rule Vs 15 years of Nitish Rule. This is as far from truth as it can be. Sample this, Nitish was part of Laloo ji’s cabinet initially but broke away to form his own party called Samata Party. So effectively, Laloo-Rabri rule was Laloo-Rabri- Nitsh rule for the first time. Nitish became chiefminister in 2005, but left NDA in 2013 and in 2014, Nitish left chief ministership too. Jiten Ram Manjhi became chief minister replacing him.. He was supported by RJD at that point of time, so it was effectively Manjhi-Tejaswi Rule.. After that Nitish came back as chief minister with support from RJD and Manjhi formed his own party called HAM . This party later joined BJP.. in 2015, Nitish and Laloo joined hands and formed government. Later Nitish and Tajsawi become chief minister and deputy chief minister. Thus it was a Nitish-Tejaswi Rule. In 2017, Nitish again resigned and became chief minister with help from BJP. It between all these there were three instances of Rashtrapati Shashan too.. So its not straight forward 15 Years vs 15 years..
Now let us talk about castes. For some, the most important factor in Bihar politics. People trivialize caste based voting as you belong to caste x , you vote for candidate from caste x. I wish it was as easy as it seems. For rest of India, castes are generally categorized as General, OBC, SC and ST. In Bihar, there are Forwards and Backwards. Within backwards, you have EBC, OBC, Dalits and Maha-dalits. Maha-dalits are Dalits minus Paswans. Paswans generally are said to be represented by Chirag who is born to a Punjabi Brahmin mother.
Laloo ji is a Yadav who opposed the brahmins most, yet he always had a brahmin as his think tank from Raghunath jha, Shivanand Tiwari to Manoj jha. Nitish ji is also an OBC but always had support of brahmins and Rajputs but not Bhumihars . Bhumihars want to have their own leader like Giriraj Singh but often get confuse as Kanhaiya is also a Bhumihar who is opposing Giriraj Singh.
Muslims don’t vote en bloc as it is generally assumed.. There are shershahvadi, surjapuries, sabji-faroshs, Ansaries and so on.. All these all have different political inclinations.
You may think Biharis cast their vote based on castes yet Bihar is ruled by a Kurmi for last one and half decade which form only 2% of total voters. RJD which claims to have a magic of Muslim and Yadav ( forming 35% of total voters) got zero seats in last general polls.
This is just a very watered down description of Bihar political and electoral scenario. Compare that to US polls.. You are white, like Ivanka and hated Hillary, you vote Trump.. For rest, you have Joe Biden.. Actually, Bihar politics is Game of thrones meets House of cards meets Inception meets Race 3. So did someone say too middleclass? Its freaking beyond your grey cells capacities. Take that..
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