The exit polls for the Bihar assembly election came yesterday, and if we go by them, the results are pretty much in favour of RJD led Mahagathbandhan. Almost all exit polls give the MGB seats around the majority figure, that is 122.
India Today-Axis My India poll, which has made a record predicting almost all the election results rightly, gave MGB an easy victory with 139-161 seats. All the other pollsters, too, give MGB some margin or lead over NDA.
So, what changed in the politics of Bihar in the last one year that the NDA, which won 39 out of 40 seats in the last 2019 general election, is now set to lose the state by a big margin. Well, it is all about the leader. In the 2019 general election, people were voting for PM Modi, so irrespective of the party and candidate, they gave votes to whoever could install the BJP leader on the PM chair once again.
In the 2020 Bihar assembly election, exactly the opposite happened. The voters of Bihar voted whoever could uninstall Nitish Kumar from CM chair, and therefore, they voted even for RJD to oust Kumar.
India Today/Axis says that if BJP would have fought Bihar alone, it was BJP’s election to win
— Nupur J Sharma (@UnSubtleDesi) November 7, 2020
Had BJP gone in the election alone, it would have won easily. The pollsters from India Today, Axis My India also confirmed this that if BJP had fought the election without Nitish Kumar as CM face, it would have won the elections. But, the high command of BJP decided to back Nitish Kumar and Sushil Modi duo who are facing anti-incumbency for 15 years.
The performance of Nitish Kumar led NDA government in Bihar was miserable and the CM with 15 years of experience proved to be the most ineffective leader of the country after Uddhav Thackeray in dealing with Coronavirus induced lockdown.
Most of the Bihari migrant voters voted for RJD because they were frustrated with Nitish Kumar’s handling of the migrant crisis. At the time when UP, Jharkhand sent buses to bring back their students from cities like Kota and Delhi, Nitish Kumar advised them to stay back instead of returning to their families. The migrant labourers from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra recorded videos abusing Nitish Kumar because their CM was not doing anything to bring them back to family amid lockdown.
“A take away from the exit poll is that the migrant workers have chosen to back Tejashwi Yadav over Nitish Kumar. The India Today-Axis My India exit poll data shows that migrant labourers preferred the Mahagathbandhan over the NDA with 44 per cent voting in its favour while 37 per cent preferring the latter,” wrote India Today in its report on exit polls.
The anger against Nitish Kumar harmed the prospects of BJP in the state. The central command of BJP sacrificed the alliance with Chirag Paswan led LJP, who sensed the anger against Kumar and split from NDA in the state. The saffron party has the golden chance to throw away JD(U) from the alliance and announce Nityanand Rai or Chirag Paswan as the CM candidate. But it chose Kumar over Paswan and the results today are in front of everyone.
The only poll issue BJP and JD(U) had throughout the election was that RJD would bring Jungle Raj 2.0. But the public memory is very short and they care about the future more than the past. The voters found a better future with 31-year-old Tejashwi Yadav rather than 69-year-old Nitish Kumar and made their choice. No one knows whether Tejashwi Yadav would bring back the Jungle Raj 2.0, but the voters have more trust in him than Nitish Kumar.