Modi’s BJP Concedes Defeat in India State Election

In panic, BJP leaders started highlighting issues of caste, creed and crime (jungle raj). The Congress would get 27 seats.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s three allies – the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) – could together bag only six seats.

“This is a very big victory”. “From the national perspective, the result is significant”. The BJP’s high-pitched Lalu-bashing did not seem to have cut much ice with his caste brothers. He called Modi “a RSS pracharak” and vowed to mount a nationwide campaign against the BJP-led central government. Kumar, the Grand Alliance chief ministerial candidate (and also the incumbent chief minister), addressed over 200.

The Congress leader also asked Modi to shed his arrogance and listen to the voice of the people who were yearning for an environment of peace and harmony. The Bihar battle was dubbed as the one destined to set the political discourse of the country and all eyes were fixed on its outcome. “We will create a Bihar of their aspirations”, Laloo Prasad Yadav said during a press conference in the state’s capital city of Patna.

Nitish Kumar used all the jibes directed at him to remind voters about Bihari pride – just the way Modi used to do during his tenure as Gujarat chief minister.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Lalu Prasad’s party could muster only four seats, while Nitish Kumar fared worse with two seats.

Realising that the JD(U) can not match the resources of BJP, Kishor’s team also devised the “Har Ghar Dastak” (knock on every door) that helped the party establish a personal connect with the masses.

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah too said that the verdict “will prove critical for the nation in the days ahead”.

Modi said he reached out to Nitish Kumar, the leader of the anti-Modi alliance and current chief minister of Bihar, to congratulate him. “The writing was always on the wall”.

The loss is the BJP’s second state-level poll defeat this year.

The global brokerage firm further said that the strong employment data from the U.S., which was published after the Indian market closed on Friday, will likely weigh on markets on Monday as it has “materially increased the possibility of a Fed lift-off in December”. “This defeat calls for serious thinking”.

“The alliance was together based on its commonality of opposition to RSS and BJP’s politics and belief in a new brand of politics vis-Ã -vis the Modi brand of politics”, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told IANS. “We bow before the people’s mandate”. “It is a defeat for Modi and (BJP president) Amit Shah”.

As Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance trounced BJP-led NDA in Bihar polls, leaders and political analysts termed it as victory of “principles over moneybags” and “defeat of intolerance”. “People have indicated that they now expect that at the Center ministers will get freedom to work in their ministries and MPs and MLAs within the BJP will be respected”.

Counting of votes began at 8 am today amidst tight security at 39 centres across the state and al the results are expected to be in by this evening. But the picture changed soon as the Grand Alliance clawed back strongly.

Thousands of jubilant JD-U, RJD and Congress activists then celebrated even as gloom descended in the BJP camp. India Inc welcomed the results.

At the end of the first two phases, BJP bosses realised that they had miscalculated and pushed hard to make up.