NEW DELHI: Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. Name a situation in which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party had more numbers than its allies but it couldn’t lead the government.

Bihar looked poised on Tuesday to go down in history as the state that stole the BJP’s thunder twice in Mr Modi’s two tenures. Even as the BJP is tipped to make spectacular gains in state polls in Bihar, this success could be its undoing, analysts say.

As trends of the vote count were trickling in until late night, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, an ally of the BJP, was losing a huge number of seats, while the BJP had picked up about as many. This is widely believed to have become possible with the help of a Dalit ally of the BJP leadership who curiously broke away from the BJP-led National Democratic

Alliance, allegedly at the BJP’s behest to cut into ally Nitish Kumar’s votes. Chiragh Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party may end up with a single seat, but it has done its job to tilt the headcount in the BJP’s favour in the National Democratic Alliance by tripping up Nitish Kumar by campaigning against him Majlis e Ittehad ul Muslimeen headed by Asaduddin Owaisi has, meanwhile, cut into the secular alliance’s votes, thus helping the BJP with his five projected seats. His support may be needed by the BJP-led alliance in a close race.

Worse for the BJP, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) of former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was leading it as the single largest party. In a 243-strong assembly, the BJP was leading in 73 seats up from its 2015 tally of 53, while Lalu’s 31 year-old son Tejashvi Yadav was leading his party to hold an edge over the BJP with 76 projected seats as the single largest party.

The governor must call either the single largest party or the head of winning alliance to form the government.

On the first count, Tejashvi would qualify, on the second count, Nitish is there , cap in hand, while stuck way behind the BJP ally at 43 seats, down by 28 from 2015.

If Nitish remains the chief minister, assuming numbers favour the NDA, he would be free to cite potential support from the Lalu party in case the BJP tinkers with his pride. Nitish Kumar had criticised the BJP-piloted controversial citizenship laws during the election campaign.

The BJP needs the laws for communal polarisation in next year’s key elections in West Bengal, Assam and Kerala. Lalu’s party and Nitish fought the 2015 elections together before a split was engineered between them, dragging Nitish back as a BJP ally. Earlier this year, the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra had turned the tables on the BJP.

And its spokesman in Mumbai was saying on Tuesday that the model could apply to Bihar. The Shiv Sena, however, had more numbers than the BJP when it ditched its Hindutva partner to forge an alliance with secular parties. The final act will of course depend on the final Bihar results, which could only be out by Wednesday morning. In the meanwhile, three new communist allies of the Lalu party had put up an impressive show and were expected to gain substantially with large margins.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2020