2020 Bihar Election: Ground Looks Shaky for ‘Sushasan Babu’

Ground Looks Shaky for ‘Sushasan Babu’ in 2020 Bihar Election

Nitish Kumar once a Prime Minister contender is gradually losing his “Sushasan Babu” moniker. Things are not looking good for Nitish in 2020 Bihar Election as people have forgotten lalu’s era and they are judging Nitish kumar’s 15 year tenure. In 2005 after President’s rule due to hung assembly, NDA led by Nitish Kumar won a clear cut majority using ”JUNGLE RAJ” campaign against RJD. The promise of good governance NDA brought the NDA to power in Bihar.

After winning two elections with NDA on the platform of good governance, Nitish moved against the BJP in 2013. Nitish left the NDA after Narendra Modi was declared the PM face of the BJP. Nitish fought 2014 elections alone but he faced a rout as JDU won only 2 seats out of 40 . He resigned from the CM post taking moral responsibility and made Jiten Ram Manjhi, a dalit leader, CM of Bihar. After a lot of chaos Nitish returned as CM again in February 2015 and formed a grand alliance with RJD and Congress.

2015 Grand Alliance Experiment with RJD

In 2015, BJP fought in the name of Prime minister Modi on the other hand grand alliance fought under the leadership of Nitish Kumar and his ‘good’ governance. In the absence of a strong opposition face and a solid caste alliance, the grand alliance of Congress, RJD and JDU won a thumping majority in the 2015 elections by capturing 178 seats out of 243.

After the win of 2015, things didn’t go smoothy for the “Sushasan Babu” due to continues allegations of corruption against his government and charges on Lalu Yadav’s fodder scam. In 2017 charges of corruption were leveled against his Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav. Nitish broke from the grand alliance and went back in NDA. However, the continued slowdown in the economy and weakening governance meant his performance started to go down. However, NDA performed well in Bihar in Lok Sabha elections in 2019 by wining 39 seats out of 40. However, the state politics was not favourable to the NDA and Nitish

2020 Bihar Election: Major Missteps by Nitish Kumar

Mishandling of encephalitis due to which number of infants died in 2019
Mishandling of floods in the same year
In 2020 too there is dissatisfaction among people due to poor response to the migrant crisis
There is anger amongst people of Bihar due to inefficient bureacracy
There are many areas like employment, healthcare,corruption, education, law and order where people are dissatisfied from the Nitish.

This election is only about his image vs his actual work on ground. RJD has already taken lead over JDU in many districts and this has alarmed the BJP high command too. One reason for RJD’s momentum is that BJP voters are dissatisfied with Nitish.It will be interesting to watch how Nitish Kumar overcomes all these challenges in the next two months

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by Aakash Dwivedi @_aakash0