Mamata congratulates Lalu, Nitish

Modi said he had spoken with his main rival, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, and “congratulated him on the victory” after a bitter campaign.

JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav described it as a “victory of principles over moneybags”.

The failure to win Bihar for his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) will hinder Modi’s push to pass crucial economic reforms because he needs to win such elections to gain full control of parliament. It looks a photo finish. The five-phase elections started on 12 October and ended on 5 November.

Partial results showed Modi’s Hindu nationalist party was badly lagging in the Bihar state assembly vote, with only 53 of the 243 available seats, compared to 176 for a coalition of rival regional parties.

The loss in the populous and poor state of Bihar is the most significant domestic setback for Modi since he won a crushing victory in a general election in the emerging economic power previous year, after a campaign promising rapid development, modernisation and opportunity combined with a defence of conservative cultural and social values.

“Nitish Kumar is greatly focused on the kind of governance which touches the common man, whether they are women, girl children or those at the bottom of the pyramid”.

Lalu installed his wife Rabri Devi as CM in 1997 following a corruption scandal but was defeated in 2005 and decimated in the 2010 polls that saw his once seemingly-invincible RJD shrink to just 22 seats. “Bihar has shown its traditions and chosen the right person”, Suraj Yadav of Delhi University told IANS.

Exit polls had produced varying forecasts, with a few putting the “grand alliance” ahead and others predicting a victory for the NDA.

And India TV-CVoter predicted 101-121 for the NDA and 112-132 for the Grand Alliance. “We hope Nitish Kumar will work toward Bihar’s progress with honesty”, said Ravi Shankar Prasad, a minister for communication and information technology in Modi’s government.

Shah had brought up the neighbouring country during electioneering when he said “if by mistake BJP loses the polls crackers will go off in Pakistan”. The two parties have since been at loggerheads in Bihar. He made the personal attacks, he made the headlines, he was the guarantee the BJP would stick to the agenda of development and would rise above the caste politics that the state had seen earlier.

The RJD emerged as the single largest party in the 243-member Bihar assembly after contesting the assembly elections in alliance with the JD-U. Their leaders say these elections will not be a referendum on the Centre but why was the PM and his so many ministers in Bihar then?

Lalu, the wily practitioner of realpolitik, after initial reluctance, agreed to accepting Nitish Kumar as the grand alliance’s chief ministerial candidate.

The importance of this election (on several dimensions) was reflected in the turnout.

It was the most expensive state election ever fought by the BJP, with more than 90 top party figures addressing 600 rallies over the last six weeks, party officials said.