With Bihar BJP Facing Setbacks After Pahalgam, Questions Hover Over Poll-Bound State’s Politics

As it was in poll-bound Bihar that Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 24 vowed to decimate the perpetrators of the Pahalgam massacre, the state will be the first to test the electoral impact of Operation Sindoor.

The prime minister then came under heavy fire from opposition leaders and independent analysts for addressing a function in the Jhanjharpur town of Madhubani district bordering Nepal within 48 hours of the grisly carnage and not going to Jammu and Kashmir.

Though the general perception is that India has by suddenly agreeing to US President Donald Trump’s intervention prevented the situation in the battlefield from slipping out of hand, the real mood of the people can only be measured through the election.

How 2025 is different from 1999 and 2019

While Lok Sabha elections immediately followed the Kargil War of the summer of 1999, and the Pulwama attack on a Central Reserve Police Force convoy and the subsequent Balakot strike in February 2019, there is no such scope to gauge the mood of the people across India this time. Bihar will be the only state to go to polls in October.

Both in 1999 and 2019, the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) fully exploited the post-conflict nationalistic fervour, performed very well and returned to power with a bigger majority.

Yet a close examination of the 1999 election suggests something interesting. The BJP’s tally remained at 182, that is, exactly the same as in the March 1998 Lok Sabha election. The NDA’s tally increased only because its other constituents fared better.

Curiously, in the then-undivided Uttar Pradesh, which was among the highest suppliers of army personnel, the BJP’s figure came down from 57 seats out of 85 in 1998 to 29 in 1999.

The bitter infighting within the BJP was the factor behind this poor show. Immediately after the Lok Sabha poll result, the then-chief minister Kalyan Singh was removed as he had a running tussle with the then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Contrary to this, in the then-undivided Bihar, the NDA did exceedingly well, winning 41 out of 54 seats.

Similarly, in the post-Balakot election, the NDA in Bihar swept the poll, bagging 39 out of 40 parliamentary constituencies. But in Uttar Pradesh, its tally came down from 73 in 2014 to 64, largely due to the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance. The duo won 15 seats in total.

Assembly elections

In 2025, the scenario is somewhat different from the post-Kargil War sentiment. More than six months after the two months-long battle in the lofty mountains of Jammu and Kashmir, four states – Bihar, Haryana, Odisha and Manipur – went to polls in February 2000. As the voters had already rewarded the NDA in the Lok Sabha election held in September-October 1999, they elected governments on local issues.

In Bihar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal once again emerged as the single biggest party and later in alliance with the Congress and other smaller parties formed the government.

In Haryana and Odisha, the Indian National Lok Dal and the Biju Janata Dal respectively, then constituents of the NDA, came to power.

In Manipur, the Congress won.

Incumbency factor in Bihar

This time the situation in Bihar is very complex. The incumbency factor is weighing heavily against chief minister Nitish Kumar, who is not in the best of health. His party, the Janata Dal (United), which could win only 43 seats in 2020, is facing an existential crisis.

The BJP, which won 74 seats last time, wants to replace him, if not before, then after the polls. Till recently, the saffron party was confident that it would once again ride on Modi’s popularity.

But several recent developments have badly impacted the fighting spirit of the rank and file of the BJP. Its foot soldiers are not only feeling let down after the serious security lapses in Pahalgam, but the visit to Bihar and not Kashmir by Modi has made them defensive.

Then on April 30, the Union government announced a caste census. This was a mistimed initiative, when the country was crying for action against those behind the Pahalgam killing of 26 innocent souls.

Also read: From ‘Free Hand’ to Armed Forces to Caste Census, Modi and the Art of Political Deflection

As the BJP gets overwhelming support from the 10.6% Hindu upper castes in Bihar, the decision to hold a caste census came as a blow to them.

Here it needs to be mentioned that the total upper caste population in Bihar is 15.52% – this includes that of Muslims.

Besides, the upper castes had already been upset over the caste survey held in Bihar in 2023.

The backward castes too have got nothing till now, as the decision to increase reservation in the state is pending in court.

Operation Sindoor

As if that was not enough, then came along the May 10 announcement of the cessation of hostilities with Pakistan.

Like elsewhere in India, in Bihar too a large number of voters, especially the educated upper castes – that is the BJP’s constituency – has questioned the rationale behind the sudden concession to none else but Trump, who is now saying that he is ready to broker peace in Kashmir.

They are in total confusion as to what the compulsion was before Modi to make such a U-turn. Why was a third party, that is the United States, involved when the BJP’s line was that talks and terror can not go together?

The opposition, which whole-heartedly backed Operation Sindoor, is now openly asking as to what had compelled Modi to virtually surrender before Trump.

The Congress is exploiting this situation. On social media, their workers are circulating the speech of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who took the then-US President Richard Nixon head on during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 and rejected his interference. The US then came to the support of Pakistan.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited Bihar on Thursday (May 15), his fourth time in four months.

Though the election is almost six months from now, the BJP’s war-machine in Bihar is lacking the will to put up a big fight. If the BJP’s leaders and workers continue to lack nationalistic aggressiveness, the election result could go anywhere.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar, once an asset, has now become a liability. So, the charisma of both Nitish and Modi may not work, though the latter is likely to visit Bihar once again late this month. The opposition has in Tejashwi Yadav a fresh face. This is at least the present position in the state.

Soroor Ahmed is a Patna-based freelance journalist.

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