The Rigmaroles of Bihar: Nobody can win an election without an economic programme

THE LAST DREAM of any politician is the search for a place in national memory. Some British leaders, in the age when they could set a trend, realised that a good quip could make you more memorable than a hundred worthwhile decisions. The quip did not have to be restrained by accuracy, but it had to sound intelligent. Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th-century British prime minister, once remarked that the most successful man in life is the one who has the best information.

By that measure, Congress would never have swept the elections in Bihar. Congress has become dysfunctional because of institutional collapse. A political party should be structured like a pyramid populated by a chain of functionaries who create a two-lane highway of information that connects the pinnacle to the base. Knowledge of ground reality is supplemented by media and other independent sources. Congress leaders were shocked instead of being merely surprised because they had lost touch with their roots in Bihar.

Embitterment is neither a sensible option nor a substitute for policy. The message from Bihar has been consistent. Congress numbers in the Bihar Assembly have declined consistently over the last three decades, from 71 in 1990 to six in 2025. The lowest was four, in 2010. Even the Muslim vote deserted Congress in 2025 where it found an alternative. The hardline All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) got five seats in Seemanchal, the north-eastern region of the state. The reduced representation of Muslims in the Bihar Assembly is some cause for worry. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) does not name Muslim candidates because they do not bring the community vote; parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress now take the Muslim vote for granted. This has opened space in Bihar for AIMIM.

There is a parallel message: regional parties are now a decisive component in an electoral victory. This election was a battle between allies as much as principals. RJD got 23 per cent of the vote across 161 constituencies; and BJP 21 per cent from 101. The effective difference lay in the gravitational pull of allies. The Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), matched BJP with 19.25 per cent from 101 seats, but Congress could not deliver more than 8.71 per cent to its senior partner. BJP and JD(U) took out insurance by adding Chirag Paswan to their coalition. This turned victory into a sweep. RJD had the chance of bringing Chirag Paswan into its alliance, but miscalculated.

A strong local identity becomes crucial in regional elections. Bihar has, unusually, two regional behemoths; if they find the right ally they rule. RJD has boxed itself into the defeated corner by rejecting options. It will not look beyond Congress. Nitish Kumar is flexible. In the last 10 years he has switched from BJP to RJD and back again. Nor has this hurt his secular credentials. Voters rely on what you do rather than what you say.

In adjoining Bengal, Mamata Banerjee has, so far, proved that she can outflank allies; but perhaps the time has come when she should begin to worry about the revival of the Left Front, which can easily swallow a chunk of her vote, leaving her a few apples short of a picnic. The Marxists have become a Bengali-centric regional party in Bengal, and are showing a few incipient signs of revival. Congress is comatose.

One of the more astonishing facts of the Congress dilemma is that it worships Indira Gandhi from every pulpit, as indeed it has a right to do since her commitment to nationalism was nonpareil, but it refuses to learn from what she did. She became prime minister in 1966, at the onset of the first Congress decline. In 1967 Congress scraped out a bare majority in Parliament and lost Assembly elections from Punjab to Bengal. Indira Gandhi presided over the rebirth of Congress in 1969 with an economic programme for the poor and the promise to remove poverty, which won her a spectacular victory in March 1971. Who mentions an economic programme now?

This is what allies are telling Congress. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader MK Stalin congratulated Nitish Kumar over his victory, lauded RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav’s “tireless campaign”, and reminded Congress that only “welfare-driven credibility, social and ideological coalitions, clear political messaging and dedicated management” win elections. Bihar, he added, was a lesson for everyone. Stalin’s statement has implications, not least because it was drafted with some thought. By recognising the legitimacy of Nitish Kumar’s re-election, he undermined the vote-theft alibi. Bihar voters made their decision on a logical parameter: governance. Nitish Kumar may not have been ideal, but they found the alternative unacceptable. Stalin urged introspection above accusation. From Maharashtra Supriya Sule got the statistics right but chose to underplay their meaning. If all principal parties retained their vote share, as she pointed out, then there was no anti-incumbency. The first objective of governments in an election is to preserve the winning vote share. It takes a shift of just 2 or 3 per cent to trigger an earthquake.

BJP brought Narendra Modi’s vote to its alliance. He has become an electoral magnet; without his leadership, BJP’s vote share would plummet. He gets the votes of the poor because of a sustained social welfare programme that has ensured food security to 800 million Indians and raised the aspirations of the underprivileged. The World Bank has confirmed that poverty in India has been reduced to less than 2 per cent. That is what mattered most in Bihar.