India Behind The Lens (News Centre)

Opinion Poll 2015: Battle of Bihar

First Blood Drawn in Bihar

Gaya is the most important pilgrimage for Buddhists. The sacred town is equally important for Hindus as well; for one has to perform the final rituals (post the cremation) here in this land, known as the ‘gaya Shraadh’. God Ram was accompanied by his wife Goddess Sita to this place for the ‘shraadh’ of his father when Ram had gone for exile. ‘Pind Daan’ (Donation of balls of grains to the souls) is the most important part of this shraadh which ic compulsory so as to assure the salvation of ancestors. Whilst Ram was away going to search for grains, the auspicious time of pind daan was running away. Suddenly the soul of Ram’s father Dashrath appeared and asked Sita for the Pind which would redeem his soul. Tensed Site, made balls of sand (instead of grains) from the river bed and fed it to Dashrath. When Ram returned, Sita narrated the whole event and there were 3 witnesses to this story: Banyan tree which endorsed Sita’s story and a Cow and river Phalguni both of who lied. Angry Sita blessed the Banyan tree to remain blessed through eternity (Akshay Vat) and then cursed the cow and the river to remain dry for its despicable lies. Since then the river ‘Phalgu’ (false river) has remained dry to this date.

Phase 2 of Bihar elections is over and large portions of Magadh have been into polling. It is in this city of Gaya, where former CM Jiten Ram Manjhi lost deposit during Lok Sabha elections, not more than 2 years ago and all of a sudden he finds himself in a position of power which has made him a Hero among his community across Bihar. Manjhi has allied with NDA and it was talked whether his votes are transferrable or not. More importantly, if at all he has any voter base in the 1^st place. The 2^nd phase put many of that speculation to rest

Mahadalit’s ‘insult’ – Mahadalits who are over 10% of Bihar population, voted overwhelmingly for the JDU during the Lok Sabha elections and the previous election before that. Nitish Kumar secluded Paswan community from the SCs list and formed this Maha Dalit umbrella of over 20 Scheduled Castes to form a formidable votebank. His making of Jiten Manjhi a CM was an attempt to firm his grip on this 10% votebank, which he feared losing to the NDA, because BJP cadres in the 1^st place, where his foot soldiers in his earlier tenure who carried his message of social and welfare schemes to these communities. The move backfired and Nitish had to sack Manjhi. Manjhi did not take this lightly and he, with the help of BJP, ensured that, most of the other Manjhis and other Mahadalits too, do not take this lightly. In phase 2 it was observed that a decisive chunk of Mahadalit voters have sided with the NDA and so Manjhi has proved his usefulness, not just as a vote catcher but also as a vote transferor. Nitish (JDU and not RJD) did manage to pull some Maha Dalit votes as well, but by and large this section has polarized in favour of NDA. Like thes 1^st round where LJP seems to have scored big, Manjhi’s HAM was clearly the surprise package during the 2^nd phase.

Misplaced priorities – A nervous man makes far too movements, a calm man relaxes even during the tide. The speed at which Nitish Kumar and co have been propping up different issues show how nervous a man he is. In the last 2 weeks he has raised many new issues and the previous fortnight saw a whole new set of issues. Unlike Lalu Yadav, who has stuck to his ‘reservation’ barb and Mandal politics, Kumar’s strategy seems confusing for he is not inclined to take any issue to a conclusion. For a 10 year CM with supposedly no anti incumbency, it is a surprise that Kumar hardly talks about his 10 year achievements during his campaigns and talks more about what would be done in future. His sudden outburst in Social Media is also another of his bizarre strategies. It would appear that his priority is more to stop BJP winning this election than to win the election for his alliance.

Mountain of Momentum – NDA cadres have pulled rabbits, horses and elephants out of their hats to bring an election as close as this. During the last Lok Sabha vote share for JDU + RJD + Congress was a whopping 45% vs NDA’s vote share of 38%, that too which the latter fetched at the peak of Modi wave. Recent polls confirm this unanimously that this gap has narrowed down. This shows that NDA has a powerful momentum with it. Was the gap so huge in the 1^st place? NDA led in over 170 out of 243 seats if Lok Sabha alliances are taken into account. However if JDU share is added to UPA, this lead becomes 152:91 in favour of UPA. So even at a 6% gap, the NDA still led on 91 seats. It is safe to assume that 91 is the worst case scenario for NDA and 152 best for UPA. However Manjhi broke away with JDU and brought with him a near 2.5 to 3% of transferable vote share (all of which belonged to the JDU). This swing would cause NDA to lead in a further 20 seats and the lead now becomes 132:111 in favour of UPA. Next, credible survey by CSDS suggests that over a 1/3^rd of JDU voters would not for its alliance partners due to Jungle Raj Fear. Assuming JDU vote share of 13.5% (after reducing 2.5% due to Manjhi effect), for 142 seats where JDU is not contesting, using simple arithmetic, this vote comes to 7.89%. One third of this vote i.e. 2.63% would go to the alliance which is non Jungle Raj, i.e. NDA. So the NDA jumps from 39% to 44% and UPA comes down from 45% to 40%. Assuming this being a localized election and more rebels fighting from both sides (more from NDA), there would be a loss of 1.5% votes for NDA and 1% for UPA, leading the overall vote share to be 42.5% for NDA and 39% for UPA. Not surprisingly, the vote share during the final leg of IBTL Opinion poll for Bihar was very close to these estimated vote shares.  In fact this is more than a mere co incidence that these trends have so far followed in the post poll study as well.

Hamla on Jumlas ­– Nitish’s tactics may seem bizarre but some of the issues might trouble Modi. Modi has tried to make this election on local issues while Nitish has tried to make it a direct fight between him and Modi. Even after 18 months in office, Modi does not have too much to talk about. On the other hand, Nitish , despite a mediocre 10 year rule, did have the advantage of running office after a Jungle Raj of 15 years. Hence even his ordinary performance comes as a phenomenal achievement because of screening effect. People relate to the previous Jungle Raj and compare it with Nitish rule and find a stark difference between the two. Under these situations, a section of voters have been confused and this was visible in the reaction of voters, especially in those seats where BJP is in direct fight with JDU. PM should have or in future, must make it a point to highlight his achievements like Jan Dhan, Insurance schemes and also display the possible Jungle Raj fears, along with apologizing for some cracks, like rising Daal prices (he could do this by saying prices of all other commodities have been controlled and these 2 would be controlled soon enough). Finally he has to vocally talk about and clear any doubts on reservation.

Fishing in muddy waters - Past performance does not guarantee future results rule. So far IBTL has 100% accuracy in assessing Indian polls across states and the nation. However, this in no way guarantees that even this election would be accurately assessed. This is just an honest attempt by IBTL to present the analysis of the information it received from the ground. While fishing in muddy waters, even a smart fisherman can miss his target at times.