Bihar elections 2020: BJP has one ally in theory and another ally in practice

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is strongest in the Hindi belt of India. However, there is one 'Hindi-belt' state which has never had a BJP Chief Minister. BJP has formed the government, but has always been the junior partner. BJP desperately wants to expand its base and have a Chief Minister from its own party. But how can they do that. The incumbent government is formed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) (JD(U) ); BJP; and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).

BJP does not have enough presence to stand by itself. And yet, if they had continued to ally with JD(U) and LJP, they would have to let JD(U) have the Chief Minister's post. What's more, they would not be able to stand in so many seats (they would need to let their allies stand in some).

On 4th October, they formally announced an alliance with JD(U). JD(U) would stand in 122 seats (of which its ally HAM would stand in 7 seats), and BJP in the remaining 121 seats (of which its ally VIS would stand in 11 seats) ). LJP was not part of the alliance. At least according to the official statement.

LJP had walked out of the alliance 'with JD(U).' However, they only stood in 134 seats. Almost all the seats they fielded candidates were among the 122 seats where JD(U) was standing. LJP were standing in very few of the 121 seats BJP was standing in. What's more, LJP's leader Ram Vilas Paswan remained a minister in the BJP led union cabinet even after they were officially contesting separately (Paswan passed away on 8th October 2020).

So basically, BJP was trying to get support from JD(U) in its 121 seats. In many of the 122 seats, their plan was to secretly support LJP. If they were to have a post-poll alliance with LJP, they would get the Chief Minister's post.

What about expanding its own base?

Though BJP can get LJP's support after the elections, that alone would not have solved the problem of trying to expand its base. They were still standing in only 121 seats. But it turns out that BJP had a plan for that problem as well.

Senior BJP leaders officially left the party and joined LJP. The deal is that LJP will just keep them for now to make them MLAs. Later on, they are likely to get back to their original party.

As many as 14 BJP leaders have joined LJP and got an MLA ticket. It is impossible for LJP to have attracted so many of them on its own.

How can BJP betray JD(U)?

BJP leaders have made many strong statements saying they are supporting JD(U)'s Nitish Kumar as Chief Minister.

There are no ifs and buts. There should be no confusion about it. The BJP has already announced that Nitish ji will remain the chief minister regardless of the number of seats won by different allies of NDA.

-- Sushil Kumar Modi, Bihar Dy. CM and BJP leader

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made strong statements in support of Nitish Kumar.

In an open letter to the people of Bihar, he said, "I need Nitishji's government in Bihar to ensure that development continues and projects are not blocked."

Narendra Modi

@narendramodi

बिहार के भाइयों और बहनों के नाम मेरा पत्र...

4:42 PM · Nov 5, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

How will BJP be able to go against their statements? The fact is, they don't need to be the ones to do it.

LJP has been constantly attacking JD(U). They have been saying strongly that they will form the government with BJP, and BJP will have the Chief Minister's post. If BJP and JD(U) don't get absolute majority, they will need LJP's support. BJP just needs to tell JD(U):

Sorry, we wanted to make your member Chief Minister, but LJP insisted that we have the post. We need their support to form the government, what else could we do?

Won't JD(U) know all about BJP's plan?

JD(U) will know the plan very well. However, that may not stop the plan from working out. Some voters' main aim will be to stop RJD from winning. If JD(U) is standing in their seat, they will vote for JD(U). But if it is not standing, they will vote for BJP whether it has JD(U)'s support or not. What's more, JD(U) will do what is best for them whether they are being cheated or not. If RJD and its allies win absolute majority, JD(U) will have no chance of being in the government. However, if they don't win absolute majority, the 'cunning fox' (as Nitish Kumar is known as) might find some way of being in the government. So they may support BJP in some seats even if they are being cheated.

Nevertheless, it is likely that JD(U) won't transfer its votes to BJP well. On the other side, the votes will get split between JD(U) and LJP which will help the RJD alliance win.

Apart from trying to form the government, BJP and JD(U) will be both trying to get more seats than each other. Till now JD(U) has always won more seats than BJP. However, if BJP wins more seats now, they are likely to become the senior partner in the next election.

How can one judge how well BJP's strategy works?

Election results are on 10th November. If BJP's strategy works, LJP will get an unprecedented increase in votes. Even if they don't win many seats, their vote-share may increase.

LJP's votes should increase particularly in the 14 seats where they are unofficially fielding BJP candidates.

	BJP leaders who are standing on LJP tickets
	Name	Constituency
	Rameshwar Chaurasia	Sasaram
	Rajendra Prasad Singh	Dinara
	Dr. Usha Vidyarthi	Paliganj
	Shweta Singh	Sandesh
	Rabindra Yadav	Jhajha
	Indu Devi Kashyap	Jehanabad
	Mrinal Shekhar	Amarpur
	Saakar Suresh Yadav	Madhepura
	Rakesh Kumar Singh	Ghosi
	Kumari Shobha Sinha	Imamganj
	Tarkeshwar Singh	Baniapur
	Arjun Ram	Rajauli
	Shashi Bhushan Kumar	Nawada
	Ranjit  Yadav	Gobindpur
*Arjun Ram is standing as an independant

Also, BJP is trying to make the anti-incumbency feeling only on JD(U) (and not on BJP even though they are also in the Bihar government). If JD(U) does far worse than BJP, they would have succeeded in spreading that feeling.

Deja vu of 2005:

In 2005, Ram Vilas Paswan was a union minister in the Congress led Manmohan Singh government. Elections were held in Bihar in which Congress officially allied with RJD. LJP officially went alone, but only stood against RJD (not against Congress). They said that they would form the government with a Chief Minister from Congress.;

There was a hung assembly in which LJP were the kingmaker with 29 seats. However, the numbers were such that they could not form the government with Congress alone. The government would have to include RJD as well. RJD was the single largest with 75 seats whereas Congress had only 10 seats. What's more, LJP had second thoughts about supporting Congress considering they had more seats. So RJD refused to give up its post as Chief Minister under any circumstances. In the end, the assembly was dissolved and re-elections were held.