Lok Sabha Election Results 2024: ‘Paltu’ Nitish Kumar delivered for NDA

To observe a wholly Hindispeaking state from afar without a recognisable statelevel BJP facemdashdespite the ruling party at the Centre holding Hindi and Hindutva as its main planks in the heartlandmdashmight seem oddThere was of course BJPrsquos genteel Sushil Modi who passed away shortly before the general electionsOtherwise for the last three decades only two faces have dominated Bihar politics Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar National parties have aligned with either dispensation to pick up seats for a coalition BJP has been a nogo for Lalu Not so the case with NitishThe 2019 general elections in Bihar were different in that regard There was an evident lsquowaversquo for Narendra the infinitely more popular Modi nationally with the BJP bagging 39 of the 40 seats in the state The only remaining one Muslim majority Kishanganj went to the Congress As it has in 2024 as wellThe overriding perception for the NDA in Bihar ie BJP with Nitish Kumarrsquos JDU is they were bound to lose seatsmdashhaving maxed out their potential and hardly a sign of the same lsquoModi waversquo in 2024 that also rode on the back of the Balakot attacks in 2019 Only the extent of that loss had to be set depending on the pollsterThat the political formation itself had been formed again did add to some of the confusionNitishrsquos JDU was part of the INDIA bloc until January 2024 when he suddenly opted out of the coalition government with Lalursquos RJD returning to BJP only a few months before the general electionsThe more popular local nickname for Nitish is actually lsquoSushashanrsquo good governance Kumar His switchover between coalitions for the eighth time while retaining the Bihar chief ministerrsquos seat all along has nationally earned him the sobriquet lsquoPaltursquo Kumar Some predicted a loss of seats for him along with a loss of faceItrsquos only when you visit the state that you realise how the public on the ground often feels differently As a local wit put it to us during election travels ldquoHowrsquos Nitish lsquoPaltursquo Kumar Hersquos exactly on the same seat he was in Itrsquos the other parties who keep switching over for himrdquoAn equally defining factor on the ground was young Tejashwi Yadav to whom father Lalu has totally passed on the reins of the RJD He was practically the face of INDIA bloc sharing seats with Congress together causing a fair dent to the NDA tallyLikewise late Ramvilas Paswanrsquos son Chirag sufficiently delivered seats with LJP for NDA Which puts into question if there is indeed a resounding public resentment for supposedly dynastic politics in general electionsEven Tejashwirsquos sister Misa Bharti got third time lucky and finally won a seat from Pataliputra Expecting the third sibling Rohini Acharya to win too wouldrsquove been pushing it of course Akhilesh Yadav in the neighbouring UP was fully the hero of 2024We guess it depends on the candidates and the campaign Tejashwi has doubtlessly been gaining traction since the 2020 Assembly electionsmdashsticking to solving unemployment as his core theme In a reversed way these general elections are actually semifinals for Tejashwi and others preparing for 2025 Bihar pollsImage makeover for RJD is on Tejashwi consciously stayed away for instance from fielding the former don Pappu Yadav from Purnea in what was the hottest ticket split three ways in Bihar Pappu stood as an Independent and passed with distinctionmdashbeating both national formationsThe famed lsquoModi factorrsquo apart would the INDIA bloc with Nitish have taken Bihar away from NDA altogether It would require much splicing of resultsrsquo data to arrive at any such conclusionThat said itrsquos hard not to see this as Nitishrsquos success in some ways You could kinda sense it on the streets too with enough praise still for his work on the statersquos law and orderItrsquos richly ironic to be warned by local Biharis to be careful with violence etc because we were travelling for elections to Bengal nextThere is also Nitishrsquos longstanding work on creating jobs for women through subsidised cooperatives with ldquoJeevika didisrdquo in every district In Bihar the female voter turnout is inevitably higher than the male By and large Bihar recorded relatively low voter turnouts across phases Which possibly explains fairly predictable resultsmdashcompared to UP obviously that Bihar often gets hyphenated withGiven that BJP is way short of a majority and the NDA precariously not too far over the midway mark itselfmdashthe only thing that can make these results less predictable is if Nitish as an ally with 12 seats does a lsquopaltirsquo again Or is that predictable Thatrsquos for the gossip columns of course12Seats won by JDU in Bihar