Governance key poll plank for NDA to repeat ’24 performance

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Bihar saw the National Democratic Alliance win 174 of the 243 assembly constituencies, resulting in it winning 30 of the 40 parliamentary constituencies in the state — putting to rest the ghost of the 2020 assembly election when the alliance won 125 seats, although part of that can be attributed to one NDA constituent at the Centre, the Lok Janshakti Party going it alone in the state and targeting the Janata Dal (United), by fielding candidates against it (only in six constituencies did it target the BJP).

- Smriti Kak Ramachandran

This November's assembly election offers the NDA, now truly united in Bihar with the LJP (RV) also part of it in the state (as it was in last year’s Lok Sabha election), an opportunity to repeat that performance, although the fact that chief minister Nitish Kumar has been in power for around 19 years on the trot, with a nine month gap, makes it vulnerable to anti-incumbency. There are other challenges as well — Kumar's indifferent health, and the absence of any other leader of his standing in either his own party or the state BJP is one; as is the prospect of Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj playing spoiler.

The NDA insists that governance will be the plank on which it goes to polls.

The election commission's decision to hold polling in just two phases in Bihar is evidence of the good governance of the “double engine government” and the changes on the ground, Janata Dal (United) working president Sanjay Jha claimed on Monday.