NEW DELHI: In 2024, the NDA suffered a loss of nine seats compared to 2019. In 2024, the NDA suffered a loss of nine seats compared to 2019.
A three-day review of the BJP’s Lok Sabha performance in Bihar, held in Patna last week, has found that alienation for the party among both forward and the backward castes in some seats, not changing sitting candidates despite multiple reports of strong anti-incumbency against them and inaccessibility of sitting MPs cost the party the loss of four of the 16 seats that it contested.
Party leaders who took part in these meetings told The Sunday Guardian that two of the four seats that the party lost—Arrah and Sasaram—were considered to be A+ category. Former Union Minister Raj Kumar Singh was the party’s candidate from Arrah, while party’s former MLA, Shivesh Kumar Ram contested from the Sasaram seat.
In 2019, the National Democratic Alliance had won 39 of the total 40 Lok Sabha seats. This time it suffered a loss of nine seats.
Party sources said that Singh, despite carrying out development work in his constituency, could not stop being the senior bureaucrat he was before joining politics, which led to the creation of some distance between him, his voters and the party workers. Singh retired as Union Home Secretary before he was picked by BJP to contest the Lok Sabha elections in 2014. Singh, despite having enormous electoral resources at his disposal, was not able to overcome the perception among voters that it was very difficult to reach him in times of need.
In Sasaram, one of the close associates of Ram went “missing” just a few days before the elections, thereby leading to a resource crunch and election management issues which impacted Ram’s campaign significantly. He eventually lost by 19,000 votes.
As per the party’s estimates, their assessment done before the polling had put the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on 33-35 seats out of the total 40 seats in the state. However, it could win 30 seats. Both BJP and JDU won 12 seats each, while alliance partners LJP won all 5 seats it contested and the HAM won the lone seat allotted to it. Upendra Kushwaha lost from Karakat seat, which was again a seat that the BJP strategists were assured of a win.
In Nawada, BJP’s candidate Vivek Thakur ultimately won, albeit by a reduced margin and vote share from 2019 and 2014. BJP leaders said that the seat could have gone either way because of the anger against the BJP among the forward community for its seemingly “pro-backward” policies.
In the Aurangabad Lok Sabha seat, the feedback that was sent from the state had recommended replacing the sitting MP Sushil Singh, who had been an MP from the seat for the last three terms and was facing significant anti-incumbency. However, the said recommendations were not accepted by the party leadership and Singh ultimately lost to Abhay Kushwaha of RJD by over 70,000 votes.
Significantly, the RJD led by Lalu Prasad Yadav this time fielded four candidates from Koeri-Kurmi community including one candidate who is married to a Kurmi family. In contrast, there was not a single Koeri-Kurmi candidate from BJP, while the JDU fielded three candidates from the community. The other candidate from this community for the NDA was Upendra Kushwaha. Central functionaries told The Sunday Guardian that the state president of Bihar BJP, a position that is considered the tallest in the BJP organization in a state, Samrat Chowdhary was himself from the Kurmi-Koeri group which shows how much the BJP valued this community.
As per the feedback received from this three-day exercise, the central leadership, after the appointment of a new national president to replace the incumbent Jagat Prakash Nadda will be making new changes in the state’s organization.