The document discusses the political landscape leading up to the Bihar assembly elections in 2015, highlighting the strategic alliances formed between the RJD, JD(U), and Congress in response to the BJP's strength post-Lok Sabha elections. Key insights include the influence of various caste demographics on vote shares, with the RJD benefiting from Yadav and Muslim votes, while JD(U) capitalizes on Nitish Kumar's development record. The document emphasizes that the BJP faces significant challenges in proving its effectiveness in Bihar amidst these shifting dynamics.

1. Political Communication
Assignment
BY
SatyaNarayana Swamy Gurram

2. BiharElections-2015
 The upcoming Assembly Bihar elections is going to be crucial to the present BJP to continue their
swing after their successful win in Loksabha elections.
 At the same time, the equations in the NDA got changed after NitishKumar,present ChiefMinister
unjoinned the NDA alliance ,because of which there is a split in the Upper Caste community votes
who mainly vote for the development rather than the appeasements. So the upper caste votes will
be shared among these parties. In 2010 elections the BJP and JD(U) alliance has acquired 39% of
the total vote share and has won 206 seats out of 243 and RJD has acquired has 18.84% of vote
share and won 22 seats.
 But after Nitish Kumar , has to join the hands with other opposition parties i.e LaluPrasad’s
party(RJD) and Congress to get back his chief minister seat, when there was a non- confidence
motion presented against his party recently.
 As there is a tough competition between the vote shares because of various factors like the Caste
Card , Development there is a tough competition between the New-Secular Alliance consists of
RJD(LaluParty),JD(U) ,Congress and NationalDemocracticAlliance consists of BJP,
LokJanataShaktiParti(Paswan).
 The Strength of RJD is the vote share of Yadav’s and Muslim’s vote share and JD(U) strength is Nitish
Kumar and his development during the last 2 tenure’s as a ChiefMinister.

3. 14.4
14.7
10
7.1
6.4
5.7
5
4.7
1.5 5.2
4.2
Voter's Share in %(ByCaste)
Yadava's-RJD
Muslims-RJD
Mahadalits-Both BJP
and Nitish Voters
Banyas-BJP Voters
Koeri-Nitish Voters
Brahmin-BJP voters

4. Bihar 2015 and impending Lalu-Nitish
Marriage

5. Strengths of RJD and JD(U) alliance
 Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar have formed an alliance of
convenience in Bihar. Afraid of losing the State to the BJP, they have
ganged up together with the Congress which has been decimated
nationally. What promoted this alliance is poor performance of all
the these parties in the Lok Sabha elections held in 2014. The logic
of all these parties contest together there would be no division of
anti-BJP votes.
 In the 2014 Lok Sabha Results , if these three
parties(JDU,Congress,RJD) along with Pawar’s NCP had contested
together in the Lok Sabha polls, NDA would have won only 10 seats
instead of 31. It can be argued that elections is not only about
arithmetic but also chemistry and the BJP would have still done
extremely well.

6.  Rashtriya Janata Dal-Lok Janshakti Party: 25 seats for 25.59 per cent;
Congress: four seats for 8.38 per cent; Communist Party of India: one seat for
1.69 per cent and Communist Party of India (Marxist): no seats for 0.71 per
cent. The JD(U) polled 22.61 per cent to the BJP's 16.46 per cent.
 These figures ought to comfort Lalu Prasad and warn his opponents against
prematurely writing him off. In the October 2005 election, which the RJD
fought jointly with the Congress, the two parties together won 63 seats for a
combined vote share of 29.54 per cent. The RJD's share of votes in this was
23.45 per cent, which establishes a vote erosion in the current election of
around 4.5 percentage points. In the same election, the JD(U) and the BJP
polled 20.46 per cent and 15.65 per cent respectively.
 The combined vote share of the RJD, the LJP and the Congress is 34 per cent.
Add the Left parties, and the vote share increases marginally to 36.40 per
cent — still some distance behind the 39 per cent jointly polled by the JD(U)
and the BJP. The JD(U) and the BJP outperformed their principal opponents,
the RJD and the LJP in every region of the State. The former had a lead of
over 10 percentage points in all but one region, Mithila, where the RJD-LJP
polled 27.5 per cent to the JD(U)-BJP's 36 per cent. The region-wise
comparative shares of the rivals: Ang: JD(U)-BJP 37.7 per cent and RJD-LJP
26.50 per cent; Koshi: JD(U)-BJP 39.8 per and RJD-LJP 22 per cent; Mithila:
JD(U)-BJP 36 per cent and RJD-LJP 27.5 per cent; Tirhut: JD(U)-BJP 38.5 per
cent and RJD-LJP 24 per cent; Bhojpur: JD(U)-BJP 37.5 per cent and RJD-LJP
25.9 per cent; Magadh: JD(U)-BJP 43.9 per cent and RJD-LJP 28.1 per cent.

7.  Rebonding of old rivals Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar today checkmated BJP’s march in
Bihar with secular alliance winning 6 of the 10 Assembly seats where bye-elections were
held on August 21.
 RJD of Lalu Prasad was victorious in Rajnagar (SC), Chapra and Mohiuddinagar. Ruling JD(U)
won in Jale and Parbatta, while Congress wrested Bhagalpur from BJP.
 On the other hand, RJD-led 'secular alliance' looks confident of getting the backing of 14.6
percent votes of Yadavs, 16 percent votes of Muslims and 5.7 percent votes of Rajput caste,
thus making it a formidable 36.3 percent vote share. The Rajput caste voters have showed
their loyalty to the RJD in the recent prestigious by-election to the Maharajganj LS seat
where RJD candidate Prabhunath Singh defeated the JD-U candidate and education
minister PK Shahi in the stronghold of Bhumihar voters. Of the total four MPs the RJD has,
three — Prabhunath Singh, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and Jagadanand Singh — come from
the very caste, indicating the Bhumihar caste's loyalty to Lalu’s party.
 The bigger source of hope for Nitish is the 21.3 percent extremely backward castes. The
reason behind his claim on EBC votes is his government's move to constitute the Mahadalit
Commission which allows them to avail several development schemes.

8. Some other challenges for BJP led NDA in
Bihar and advantages for RJD and JD(U)
 As the Narendra Modi led BJP government came into ruling by keeping a lot of
speculation in public and was manage to win 2014 Loksabha elections with the public
hating congress rule, and there is a split in the votes .Now it’s a time for them to really
prove what they can specially do Bihar
 Narendra Modi government has recently announced a 1 lakh core special package to
Bihar with the assembly elections round the corner, this has to be really fullfilled
otherwise they would be easily targeted by the opposition parties like the RJD ,JDU
and Congress.
 A special status category to Bihar is a long term promise , which BJP has to provide to
Bihar. But they cannot just tell it by words as they are feeling the pressure from
AndhraPradesh people, which they promised but failed to deliver.
 As it is exactly 1 year the Narendra Modi led BJP govt came into power, people will
really watch their real work on the ground rather than the manifesto and BJP cannot
take it easy keeping in view of Delhi Election results.
 Now the main hope of BJP after JDU unjoinned NDA is LSP led by Paswan and their
Maha Dalit Votes. But there can be clash between both the parties for ChiefMinister
post and seats share among them.
By keeping all these points in view RJD and JDU alliance is going to be a touh
competation for BJP and its alliances to win Bihar elections