The Bihar Assembly election results on Sunday showed Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance getting a huge majority after defeating the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the politically important state.
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The loss in Bihar state, where Mr Modi campaigned fiercely, was viewed as a rebuke of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party’s often divisive rhetoric and of Modi’s 1½ years in power, during which critics say he has failed to bring the economic reforms he promised.
The Congress on Monday indicated it may be joining the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar, after the decisive victory of the Grand Alliance in the assembly polls.
Shah expressed his good wishes to the new government to take Bihar on the path of development. While the leader of the alliance BJP was ahead in 59, its partners HAM (secular) was leading in 3 seats and RLSP and LJP were ahead in two each. Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav have managed to reach out to all the segments of Bihar’s society.
Shourie, a minister in the Vajpayee government, who is no longer with the party, accused Shah and Jaitley of “fomenting” a coalition against Modi by forcing the other opposition parties, which commanding over 69 per cent of vote, to get into an alliance.
At the same time, the chief minister said he and his allies will respect the opposition in Bihar – a reference to the vanquished BJP and its allies. BJP should accept it. Defeat denotes the decline of a leader.
He said the results were “a victory against the ideology of RSS, the BJP and Narendra Modi”. The grand alliance bagged 178 seats, while the BJP-led NDA won 58 seats.
Union Minister and senior BJP leader Jitendra Singh said that he believed there were no wrong statements from the party on the reservation issue, when asked whether the comments on review of reservation policy by RSS head Mohan Bhagwat harmed BJP in Bihar elections. Besides, the political base of both Nitish Kumar’s JD (U) and Lalu Yadav’s RJD is limited to Bihar, and can not be a winning factor across the country.
He said a “Modi-centric” campaign “lacked credibility” because of the unkept promises of the past and blamed BJP’s “divisive tactics” for the drubbing.
– The effect of Bihar results can be seen on the markets.
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“We try to learn from every election”. Like RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav said, “We Biharis have full confidence, self-respect and capability to work hard for the development of Bihar”.
