- The Bharatiya Janata Party’s remarkable election campaign machinery needs no further elaboration. The intent, attention, and eye for minute details in every poll, irrespective of their standing/stature, make the BJP a formidable political party that is always on the roll vis-à-vis poll prospects. Come to think of it, ever since the BJP assumed power at the Centre in 2014, the party’s footprints on the country’s large swathe of political landscape have spread wide and far. Many major states are under the governance of the BJP, having won the elections over the last few years convincingly and not so convincingly with the help like minded parties. One of the most interesting aspects of the BJP’s rise is the way the party has overcome the anti-incumbency factor.
PC: NDTV
- One of the most successful experiments initiated by the BJP is the penchant to identify greenhorns and grassroots-level workers to overcome anti-incumbency. Inarguably, this penchant for identifying newbies has borne great results for the saffron brigade. Little wonder, the party is outshining state outfit allies in state after state. The latest is in Bihar, where Nitish Kumar’s unsurprising exit from state politics was announced recently. Nitish Kumar is headed to the Rajya Sabha. This is because the BJP central command’s modus operandi is to appoint party workhorses who have zero name recognition nationally to positions of power as CMs. Haryana, Odisha, MP, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh are proof.
PC: The Statesman
- In fact, even the BJP’s new party chief started his national career as a newbie some time back. While it’s no surprise that Nitish will no longer be CM, the change may have been effected earlier than anticipated. Indications that Nitish’s tenth stint would not be full-term were evident during electioneering, his reported state of health one factor. Nitish’s remarkable stint as CM is marked by his dexterity of political realignment, having last won an election in the 2004 LS polls from Nalanda. He has never contested since and was sent to Bihar’s upper house after he became CM for the second time in 2005. Yet, he navigated Bihar’s caste politics smartly, created an EBC base, and was among the early politicians to champion caste-impact of the pasmandas.
PC: Mint
- For the uninitiated, the pasmandas are backward Muslim communities. And more than a withered JDU, which has been but a one-may party, it is this EBC/Pasmanda Muslim base that will eventually see a slow churn, with BJP at the helm – even if in Bihar, Hindutva politics have always ridden on a social justice plank. BJP is now Big Bro in all big states where it was once a junior partner to a regional party. Its electoral victories in Maharashtra and Bihar are evidence of its firm grounding, turfing out the state party it once piggybacked. And yet, even if only for the optics of it, the BJP could not avoid giving deputy CMship to Nitish’s greenhorn son in good faith. That’s another measure of how much Nitish means to Bihar’s politics, even when he’s out of it.
