The TLDR: Bihar is poised to go to the polls on Wednesday. It will be the first big election since the outbreak of the pandemic. While the issues are serious—especially crippling unemployment—it is playing out like a political masala flick with the BJP (maybe) conspiring against its own ally.

The basic deets: The Assembly elections will be held in three phases across three distinct regions over the coming week. And in each phase, a different caste or community will play a big role—Dalits in the first and Muslims in the third. 

The contestants are as follows:

• The NDA consists of the BJP and the Janata Dal (U) led by current Chief Minister Nitish Kumar—along with smaller local parties. 
• The Rashtriya Janata Dal—once led by Lalu Prasad Yadav and now his son Tejashwi Yadav—is allied with its traditional partners: Congress and three communist parties.
• The spoiler to watch: Lok Janshakti Party once led by Dalit powerhouse Ram Vilas Paswan, and now his son Chirag.

What’s the big deal about this election?

One: It is the first election since the outbreak of the pandemic. So everyone will be looking for signs for dissatisfaction—both with Nitish Kumar and his BJP allies. Kumar—who is running for a fourth term—is the incumbent in the state, while BJP is in charge at the Centre. So if there are any signs of ‘corona rage’ it will show up here. 

Two: Bihar’s elections have long been determined by caste loyalties—with the winning alliance checking the required boxes: Dalit, Yadav etc. This time, the virus may trump traditional caste loyalties for the very first time.

Three: The election will also determine the fate of Nitish Kumar—who infamously dumped Congress and Lalu’s RJD after they won the 2015 election, and switched to the BJP side. The once popular Chief Minister is now facing a rising sea of discontent. At a recent rally, the crowd raised slogans in support of RJD, leading Nitish to snap: “Vote nahin dena hai to mat do, lekin yahan se chale jao” (If you do not want to vote for us, it is ok, but leave.)

But we don’t know who will profit from it—the BJP or the RJD-Congress jodi. Hence, the Machiavellian moves of the LJP…

What Machiavellian moves?

First, some history: 

• The founder of Lok Janshakti Party was Ram Vilas Paswan—the most prominent Dalit leader in the state. 
• Over the past decades, Paswan switched sides multiple times earning himself the reputation of an effective if unreliable political operator. 
• But in recent years, Paswan’s hold on the Dalit vote has diminished thanks to Nitish—who created a category of ‘Mahadalits’ to offer government benefits for a group of 20-plus Schedule Caste communities. 
• In his last switch, Paswan joined forces with the BJP and Nitish Kumar. But he had receded to the background due to illness, and finally passed away earlier this month. 
• LJP is now led by his son Chirag who has decided that the future of his party lies in bringing Nitish down. 

Chirag’s big move: For over a year, Chirag has been in charge and gunning for Nitish—complaining that his party has been sidelined within the government. This month, he stormed out of the alliance, and is now openly calling for a ‘Nitish-free Bihar’. 

But, but, but: Chirag is making sweet noises about the BJP—even calling voters to vote for the lotus in seats his party is not contesting. And he’s said that LJP has zero interest in the CM gaddi, and will be more than happy with a BJP-led government. 

More notably this: As per their seat-sharing arrangement, the BJP will contest 121 seats while Nitish’s JDU will compete in 122.  LJP is fielding candidates in 136 constituencies—and 115 of them are in RJD-contested seats. So it doesn’t take a genius to figure out Chirag’s intentions—to help BJP become the dominant party in the state, and replace JDU as its key Dalit ally. 

Point to note: The BJP continues to staunchly insist that it has no interest in any dalliance with the LJP, and is entirely devoted to Nitish.

But what about the real issues??

There are very real and very serious issues at stake for a state that is in great economic pain.

Lack of progress: For a brief period, everyone was talking about the Bihar miracle under Nitish. But today, it is once again one of the poorest states in the country. The average Indian earns thrice as much as the average Bihari. Manipur—which was poorer than Bihar in the 60s—is now 63% richer. The high crime rate, lack of effective economic policies have resulted in mass exodus of young Biharis from the state.

Jungle raj: One big reason why Bihar has never been able to catch up is its crime rate. Nitish came to power promising an end to the violence that characterised Lalu’s rule. And while he has made a decent dent, Bihar is #4 in terms of criminal cases registered across the country—below Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

Unemployment: All parties have been making wild promises about creating new jobs in a state that now has 30.9% unemployment—which has been climbing upwards in recent years. And that number only measures those who are actively looking for jobs—which is only 27.6% of young people in Bihar. 

Adding to the pain: the 22 lakh migrant workers who returned to the state due to the pandemic—and are struggling to find a job. The election is making some of them more bitter. For example, Mrityunjay Kumar who worked as a tailor in Noida:

“I waited 25 hours without decent food or drink at the station for the train, and finally made it home… Here, I was put into quarantine for 14 days in the village school...

The fear of corona led to the lockdown and forced me into all sorts of hardships, and now the government thinks nothing of holding polls in such a situation. They have stopped schools, colleges, festivals but elections must go on?”

And as the clip of an election rally shows, he has every reason to be angry:

So who is likely to win?

One answer: If you only look at caste calculations, Nitish is likely to hold on to his gaddi. The BJP has upper castes and other non-Yadav Other Backward Castes; JDU has the lower castes, Mahadalits and Extreme Backward Castes; the RJD has Muslims and Yadavs. The BJP-JDU alliance controls two out of those three blocs. And a recent pre-poll survey echoes that likely outcome—with Congress-RJD getting only 32% of the vote compared to JDU-BJP’s 38%.

Another answer: But the survey also shows that voters are more uncertain of their choices than in the past. And that the number of undecided voters is the highest among the poorest Biharis,including the uneducated (15%), Mahadalits (14%) and Muslims (17%).

The bottomline: is best articulated by The Hindu:

“Every election hangs between the two points of mahaul (atmosphere) and samikaran (voter block equations), goes the popular wisdom on polls in Bihar. While hurt feelings exist among people, older voting loyalties haven’t completely evaporated. Very clearly, therefore, seven months after lockdown, opinion is still divided, and the election, considered a one-sided affair even a few weeks ago, is not a sure thing any more.”

Reading list

Indian Express offers the best overview of the political state of play. The Hindu looks at the key role the women’s vote will play in keeping Nitish in power. Mint explains the electoral calculus in Bihar in ten charts. Hindustan Times has a deep dive into the most definitive pre-poll survey. New Indian Express has all the unemployment numbers and analysis. BBC News has the best reporting on the Covid threat posed by election rallies.