NEW DELHI: In 2024, the NDA suffered a loss of nine seats compared to 2019.
A three-day review of the BJP’s Lok Sabha performance in Bihar, held in Patna last week, found the party’s alienation between forward and backward castes in some seats, failing to change incumbent candidates despite multiple reports of strong anti-incumbency. against them and the inaccessibility of the incumbent deputies cost the party the loss of four of the 16 seats it contested.
Party leaders who participated in these meetings told The Sunday Guardian that two of the four seats the party lost (Arrah and Sasaram) were considered A+ category seats. Former Union minister Raj Kumar Singh was the party’s candidate from Arrah, while former party MLA Shivesh Kumar Ram contested from the Sasaram seat.
In 2019, the National Democratic Alliance won 39 of the total 40 Lok Sabha seats. This time it suffered a loss of nine seats.
Party sources said that Singh, despite carrying out development work in his constituency, could not stop being the senior bureaucrat he was before joining politics, which led to the creation of some distance between him, his voters and party workers. Singh retired as Union Home Minister before being chosen by the BJP to contest the Lok Sabha elections in 2014. Singh, despite having huge electoral resources at his disposal, could not overcome the perception among voters of that it was very difficult to reach him in times of need.
In Sasaram, one of Ram’s closest aides “disappeared” just days before the election, leading to resource shortages and election management issues that significantly affected Ram’s campaign. He ultimately lost by 19,000 votes.
According to the party’s estimates, its assessment made before the elections put the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) between 33 and 35 seats out of a total of 40 seats in the state. However, it could win 30 seats. Both the BJP and JDU won 12 seats each, while alliance partners LJP won all 5 seats they contested and HAM won the only seat allotted to it. Upendra Kushwaha lost the Karakat seat, which was again a seat where BJP strategists were assured of victory.
In Nawada, BJP candidate Vivek Thakur eventually won, albeit by a reduced margin and vote percentage from 2019 and 2014. BJP leaders said the seat could have gone either way due to anger against the BJP among the advanced community for its seemingly “pro-”regressive” policies.
In the Aurangabad Lok Sabha seat, comments sent from the state had recommended replacing sitting MP Sushil Singh, who had been MP from the seat for the last three terms and was facing a major anti-incumbency. However, such recommendations were not accepted by the party leadership and Singh eventually lost to RJD’s Abhay Kushwaha by over 70,000 votes.
Significantly, the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD this time fielded four candidates from the Koeri-Kurmi community, including one candidate who is married into a Kurmi family. In contrast, there was not a single Koeri-Kurmi candidate from the BJP, while the JDU fielded three candidates from the community. The other candidate from this community for the NDA was Upendra Kushwaha. Central officials told The Sunday Guardian that the Bihar BJP state president, a position considered the highest in the BJP organization in a state, Samrat Chowdhary, was himself from the Kurmi-Koeri group, showing how much he valued the BJP to this community.
Based on the feedback received from this three-day exercise, the central leadership, after the appointment of a new national president to replace the incumbent Jagat Prakash Nadda, will make further changes in the organization of the state.
