Battle for Bihar: 5 Charts/Tables that really matter

Act-1 of Political drama culminates in Patna today (Click here). It is likely that Nitish Kumar will be back as the Chief Minister of Bihar in the next week. However, the real drama is the assembly elections due 8 months from now. Given the stakes involved, it is likely to be another bitterly fought election captivating the entire nation. This article attempts to set the basic context for this election as it should then provide suitable understanding of the moves and counter moves of both the alliances in the next 6 months.

There are two alliances in Bihar - The BJP led alliance consisting of the BJP, LJP (Ram Bilas Paswan) and BLSP (Upendra Kushwaha), The Nitish Kumar Alliance consisting of JD(U), RJD (Laloo) and INC

Chart 1: Bihar Assembly elections results from 1985 plus Lok Sabha 2014

a. The RJD which has been in power between 1990 and 2005 has never won more than 30% of the vote in Bihar. But a fragmented environment (like UP now) ensured that RJD was able to be re-elected again and again until 2005 October.

b. In the period between 2000 and 2005, the Bihar economy had severely under performed (Chart 2) in comparison to rest of the country leading to vote share losses for the RJD (Rabri Devi) and significant gains for BJP and JD(U). The improved governance and the Modi wave later benefited the BJP leading to doubling of its votes between 2005 and 2014. The JD(U) too managed to increase its vote share significantly.

c. A large proportion of voters are still voting outside the mainstream parties, 26% until 2010. However, the BJP managed to reduce this to 16% during the Lok Sabha election in 2014.

Chart 2: Deposit growth between elections, 1990-2010 and vote share of leading parties

The period between 2000 and 2005 was the worst from an economic perspective since 1990 leading to a defeat for the RJD. The BJP-JD(U) alliance was re-elected after restoring order and the economy after 2005.

Table 1: Leading Party by Caste/religious groups

While the BJP alliance is quite well ensconced amongst 'Forward' classes and some SC groups (Paswan), the RJD/Congress/Nitish combine are quite strongly positioned amongst Yadavs/Kurmis (OBCs) and Muslims. Whoever can woo the rest of the sub-segments within OBCs and SCs will win the election in November. Part of the reason BJP and allies were able to do well during the Lok Sabha elections was their ability to attract some of these smaller groups as well as new middle class voters from amongst JD(U)'s traditional voters.

Table 2: District wise performance of both the alliances

It is fairly clear that the Nitish alliance is quite dependent on the Muslim vote to win Bihar. Amongst the less affluent districts and these also have a much higher proportion of muslims, the Nitish alliance enjoys a significant gap over the BJP alliance. The gap reduces as the wealth increases and the proportion of muslims comes down.

Chart 3: Deposit growth until 2014 and Satisfaction with Government performance

It is now a well known fact the Bihar has been outpacing the country and is now growing at a pace unheard of in the last quarter century. This is reflecting in stupendous deposit growth as well as satisfaction with the Chief Minister (March 2014). Only yesterday a survey published by ABP-Nielsen reiterated the Nitish edge leadership in Bihar (Click here).

In Sum

a. BJP has a tough ask ahead, particularly amongst less affluent/ high muslim concentration districts. However, as we saw earlier (Click here) improving the turnout of women amongst its most loyal voters could bridge this gap to a certain extent. It should and will continue to try winning votes amongst smaller OBC and SC groups. It will also attempt to win neo middle class voters amongst the core OBC voters of Nitish and Laloo Yadav. However, they should avoid an anti-Nitish campaign and focus on positive messages for their target groups

b. As far as the Nitish alliance is concerned, focusing on a positive message around Nitish Kumar's governance (high satisfaction) would be the most sensible strategy.This would mean a higher retention amongst core OBC voters apart from winning some of the smaller OBC and Dalit groups as well. They should learn from the AAP in Delhi and avoid targeting Modi or the BJP as they have been doing so far. Negative campaigns rarely work (Click here). Also, how the alliance will work on the ground (Candidate choice, management of rebel candidates etc) is going to be an extremely important determinant to its chances of victory in the election.

c. Both alliances will need to find a micro-segment strategy (Message, Issues, Candidates and Campaigning) to grab more votes from Independents and smaller parties which constituted about 26% of the voting population in 2010. This would be a replay of the AAP strategy in Delhi where it constrained BJP to hits historic averages while grabbing votes from smaller parties.

Apart from the joker in the pack which is the monsoon in 2015, watch out for strategic and tactical moves by both the alliances that could determine the election outcome. All in all, another exciting election ahead.