 Hello and let's talk about the results of the Bihar elections. Now the results came out late yesterday night or early today morning, however you want to put it, leading to a lot of memes, of course, comparing it to the US. There were also some allegations of irregularities. But when the results finally did come out, it looks like the NDA, that's National Democratic Alliance, just managed to secure a majority. They got 125 seats, the majority was 122. The opposition, Mahagar Bandhan, led by the RJD, secured 110 seats. Now this election and these results actually raise a lot of questions. They have a lot of implications countrywide. A key aspect, of course, has been the fact that the RJD is still the single largest party. The BJP, on the other hand, performed much better than last time, whereas the major story of this election has been the decline of the JDU under Nitesh Kumar. It has become the junior partner in the Alliance. Of course, the other major story was the emergence of the left or the re-emergence of the left, rather having secured 16 seats and they are likely to be a very strong force in the new assembly. We talked to Pranjal of Newsclick to analyze some of these implications, to see what lies ahead for Nitesh Kumar, of course, but also for Bihar and the future of opposition politics in the country. Thank you, Pranjal, for joining us. So we looked at the numbers and the NDA seems all set to form the government. Although very interesting election, of course, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of uncertainty till late in the night. So quickly to start with, before we go into some of the topics in detail, what are your maybe three top takeaways from the election? So Prashant, my three main takeaways from the elections would be that RJT has emerged as a single largest party in Bihar election, which reflects that Tejaswi has done well, RJT has done well. And this is despite the fact that one and a half months ago, nobody was even assuming that RJT would be in fight. Second, and the most important thing that left has revived in Bihar. They had a strong base a few years ago, a couple of decades ago. They were present in strong numbers in the assembly. But after that, they were nowhere there. But they still had mobilization on the ground. As a result, you have 16 members from the left parties in the assembly now, two from CPIM, two from CPI and 12 from liberation. And the third most important thing would be that Nitesh Kumar has lost the stature that he had in Bihar for being the chief minister for so long, and also being the key partner in the NDA Alliance. Absolutely. And we'll go through these one by one. So first of all, the key point you mentioned was the RJT itself. And like you said, about three months ago, everyone was predicting a massive victory for the NDA. People were talking about maybe 200 seats. RJT was nowhere in the picture. And in about less than a month, maybe two months, they really turned it around. Now, some of it, of course, was because of the strength of at least some Alliance partners. But what Tejaswi seems to have done is also sort of begin to create a narrative as a credible leader, which he really needs to expand on in the coming months and years as well. Right. So actually, if you look at the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the vote here that the current NDA in 2020 would have had in 2019 Lok Sabha election, it was 54.32%. And by that rate, they should have won 223 seats right now. But right now they are limited to 125 in total. So that tells you that what the situation in last one year has changed specifically in last two, two and a half months has changed. RJT has done phenomenally well. They've become the single largest party. My personal understanding is that this entire narrative of one picking from the social justice that the Lalu Prashad Yadav had made ensured in Bihar or had promised in Bihar, picking up from there and then bringing in this entire narrative of employment. Bihar has seen one of the massive unemployment rates in the country. So this entire agenda of ensuring economic justice as well has done wonders for RJT there. But things are still very complicated. I wouldn't completely say that it's just this entire narrative of ensuring jobs and economic justice has done wonders for RJT. If that would have been the case and if just looking at the numbers of people participating in the rallies, if we would have gone by that, RJT should have done much better. So definitely then there's another angle there that NDA specifically, BJP has been able to also ensure that it increases its tally because of the different caste or mathematics that they ensured, different smaller parties that they came into the fold of NDA. And then the entire incumbency was clearly against JDO, which we will come to later. Absolutely. Right. And in this context, what I suspect remains key also is that they just we as a task of making sure that the campaign does not end here and it keeps continuing so that because I think one of the criticisms that was leveled against the party was that for a long time it was basically not really very much there on the ground and the time was just not enough to catch up. That's one of the most important reasons why RJT has not done better. That all of a sudden you can't land up one, one and a half months, two months before the elections and start making these grand promises, doing election campaigns and then assume that you would be able to defeat a party like BJP and win elections. So and that has been the problem even in the last term that even in the last term, RJT was the single largest party. But somehow they were missing from the they were missing as an opposition. Even during this entire phase of COVID-19 lockdown, the problems that migrants had to suffer, the Musafa Nagashelta case, the only consistent force on the ground that way was the left party is nobody else. Absolutely. And Pranjil, coming to the next point, which is regarding the performance of the left. Now, interestingly, this I think is one aspect which NewsClick, of course, has covered, but also many reporters on the ground were fairly certain from the very early phase of the campaign that the left would have much better performance and in fact, a very good performance. And this, I think, indicates the nature of the consistent work that the left has been doing in the sections in Bihar where it's strong. So could you maybe also take us through the kind of buildup that is happening? So as I pointed out earlier that even, I mean, if you look on the streets and in Bihar, the role of the opposition was being played by the left parties, whether it's CPI, whether it's liberation, CPI, they were consistently raising issues of the people, issues of employment, crime rate, even in the flood affected areas, and then about the migrant workers. So left has been there. So you have to understand one thing that in states like Bihar, despite whatever the alliances you have, until unless you don't have an organization on the ground, and I think that is what is applicable throughout the country, that if you don't have organization on the ground, you will not be able to convert your support base into electoral base, or even in terms of you won't be able to convert it into votes. And that's where the left parties have specifically in Bihar gained one because of consciously being the voice of the people raising issues. And second, having organization to make sure that this alliance works out. So I mean, the left has made sure that in seats where they were strong but they could have not won without the support of RJD and Congress. They have made sure that those votes get transferred. And in the areas where the opposition, I mean the Mahagat Bandhan, other candidates were fighting, they have also transferred their votes to them. So this could have not been done without left having an organization there. And left has built an organization because of raising people's issues, as I have said. And having a 16 member block in Bihar assembly is a big thing to happen. So I think that is where left will play an important role. Issues like employment, issues like crime, COVID mismanagement have also become election agenda because of a constant pressure from the left parties in the Mahagat Bandhan and on the streets. Hopefully, left will continue to do the same in the assembly as well. Absolutely. And coming to the final point, of course, Nithish Kumar's record, so to speak, he is probably said to be the Chief Minister once again. But what is definitely going to be sure is that he won't have the same clout as before. He will not probably have the same amount to say when it comes to cabinet appointments, when it comes to decisions. And what we are likely to see is that a BJP will probably take over much more of the levels of government than before. So in that sense, this has been quite a setback for you. Obviously, I mean, if you look at JDU, they have lost 28 seats in comparison to 2015 with a vote share loss of almost 2.2%. And it's very clear from the election results that the entire anti-inconvenancy was being faced by JDU, not the BJP. So BJP has been cleverly able to do that. While on the other hand, you also need to understand that the Lok Janshakti party, which is a LJP, has been able to narrow cut down JDU to an extent in a lot of the seats. While BJP doesn't seem to have suffered any loss because of LJP or a very minor loss. So now with all these combinations being there, BJP having 74 seats in the assembly. Even if, as promised earlier, a lot of BJP people have said that Nithish Kumar would be Chief Minister. I personally think Nithish Kumar would be a Chief Minister who will be continuously dictated by the Bharti Ajanta party in Bihar. BJP will have a bigger seat, not just because they are a bigger party in Bihar, but also they are in the Central Union government. And the most important thing as Nithish Kumar has himself announced in these elections that this is going to be his last election. So actually, if you look at JDU, there's no second generation of leadership which is there in JDU with Nithish Kumar announcing that I'm not going to be fighting elections anymore and this is my last election. I don't think Nithish Kumar is in any position to push through his agenda. Right? And if his entire narrative of ensuring Jungle Raj ends, development comes to Bihar, if that would have worked, he would have not lost 28 seats in Bihar. So Nithish Kumar, even though would be Chief Minister, but the big brother role will be played by the BJP there. BJP is going to remain the strong force there. It's going to remain the stronger partner in the Alliance. And what's going to happen in future, you never know, Nithish Kumar has been named as Palturam quite often. Is he going to remain Chief Minister for five years? One will have to see. Right. The possibility does remain that six months down the line or one year down the line, the BJP could really assert its claim as well. And why would BJP not do that? They have 74 seats. They have clearly emerged as an important, one of the most important players in Bihar, where the regional parties had dominance over the last two decades. So why would not BJP want to capture the entire state? Absolutely. And in this context, Pranjeel, a final question regarding the implications of national politics itself. So we have a situation where the BJP's model is now pretty much clear. It has a huge amount of money it's throwing in. There is a clear use of schemes in a particular way, as far as targeted scheme, targeted benefits are concerned, which benefit a particular section of the population. There is a lot of calculation of caste and other arithmetic, which helps them choose the right kind of candidate. And despite all this, we have also seen that they have not really been as successful in state elections as they should be considering these factors. So in the coming state elections, what do you see as the chances before the opposition when it comes to putting forward a resistance to this machine? See, I would say, I mean, people are, I mean, even though NDA has formed the government there, I don't think it's such a clear majority that they have got. They've just escaped through it. They were 122 was the majority mark. They're at 125. So it's not overly in favor of the NDA alliance. Of course they have one, but I also personally feel it's not something to be disheartened about. Actually, there's an interesting fact. If you look at the vote share of the NDA and the Mahagrad Bandhan, the difference is hardly of 0.1%, which comes to something like 13,000 votes. So which is, I mean, it tells you, I mean, that in the long run, if you, and as you rightly pointed out, the kind of infrastructure, machinery, money, and organization that the BJP has, whether it's Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, anywhere else, if you want to counter them, you'll have to come together to fight it out, right? The other important factor here would be, in my personal understanding would be Congress. They fought on 70 seats and they performed badly. They will also have to understand that in states like these, where the regional parties have a better chance of defeating the BJP or somebody, they should leave more space for the regional parties and not push themselves to, not push the regional parties to give them more seats. So that's there. As far as national elections are concerned, obviously, BJP has a clear upper hand right now. I mean, its impact on nation is concerned. They have a lot of money, the infrastructure that they have, it could have not been countered, it has not been countered. If these different regional parties and progressive secular forces in different other parts of the country fight together, they still might be in a position to give a tough challenge to BJP. If they fight separately, I don't think that's happening and that's also very evident from bipolar results in a state like Uttar Pradesh, where BJP has like one majority of the seats with one seat going to SP and BSP winning none. So how else would you counter? Precisely. And also like you pointed out the importance of having strong organization on the ground and continuously throughout the term pushing back. Exactly. I mean, and one thing needs to be understood, even if it's a strong regional party in any state, they will have to go on the ground and if they're in the government, work more ferociously. If they're in the opposition, connect with people. You can't just land up one month in advance and think that you might defeat BJP with such a strong digital infrastructure, money infrastructure and muscle infrastructure. So alliances, sitting progressive, secular alliances together, connecting on the ground and building organization, I think would be the way forward for opposition parties in the country. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Pradha, for speaking to us. That's all we have time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news from the country and the world. Until then, keep watching News Click.