Bihar loss setback for Mahagathbandhan, results not as expected, say Left parties

New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) Left parties on Friday termed the Mahagathbandhan's defeat in the Bihar Assembly polls a major setback and pointed out that the results were reflective of ground realities.

The ruling NDA decimated the Mahagathbandhan in Bihar to retain power, reaffirming Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's enduring appeal and dealing a body blow to the Congress and its ally RJD.

The massive scale of the victory of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) can be gauged from the fact that its two main constituents -- BJP and JD(U) -- are on course for an over 85 per cent strike rate in 101 seats each they had contested.

CPI(M) General Secretary M A Baby said the results were "quite unexpected" and stressed that the opposition alliance needs to put in more united effort.

"Our assessment was that with the massive campaign we had carried out on misuse of the Election Commission, the unemployment situation in Bihar, and the lack of democratic governance, we were expecting a victory for the Mahagatbandhan. But now there is a real setback for the alliance," he told PTI.

Baby accused the ruling NDA of having misused the state machinery, resorting to various manipulations, and deploying "huge amounts of money" to win the polls.

"The Bihar elections show that to defeat the BJP, opposition parties must make a more united effort. The CPI(M) will examine in detail the other factors behind these results," the leader said.

"There was a report that around a dozen constituencies were to see 'friendly contests' among parties of the Mahagatbandhan; that sent a wrong message to sections of people," he pointed out.

Asked about the impact of the result on the alliance at a national level, the CPI(M) general secretary stressed it is important that a more unified image should be projected on behalf of the opposition.

"Bihar setback definitely will have its impact, but we are seasoned political parties; we have had ups and downs in our political life. With patience and realisation of the objective reality in the country, we have to have proper preparations," he added.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation's General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya termed the results "unnatural", and added that it has "the scars of SIR (special intensive revision of electoral rolls) all over it".

CPI General Secretary D Raja advised the alliance to introspect while saying that the crowds at their campaign were huge.

"INDIA bloc parties should do serious introspection on what happened. Because what we witnessed during the campaign was a different scene. People were gathering in all campaign meetings of the Mahagathbandhan. We could see a huge public response, young people of Bihar looking for a change," Raja told PTI.

He said the gap between the INDIA bloc and NDA is huge, and the focus should be on finding out why it was so. Raja also said that seat sharing is among the issues that need to be looked into, as not all parties were properly accommodated.

"Why is the INDIA bloc losing in electoral battles? This needs to be critically discussed and analysed, because seat sharing is an important issue, and the INDIA bloc parties must have learnt lessons from what happened in Haryana and Maharashtra.

"In Bihar, seat sharing could not reasonably accommodate all parties; that is also one of the reasons (for the defeat) I understand," he said.

He added, "I find there are some discrepancies in the voters' figures that the EC gave after SIR and polling; some questions remain." Bhattacharya, on the other hand, said the results did not correspond to the ground reality in the state. "The results are absolutely unnatural," he told PTI.

"The role of the unprecedented money transfer operation amounting to Rs 30,000 crore among a beneficiary population of three crore, defying all notions of election ethics and model code of conduct, must also be taken into account," the Left leader said.

He said the virtual repeat of the 2010 outcome, "when the credibility of the Nitish Kumar government has touched an all-time low and the Modi government too suffered a major loss of support just a year ago", defies credulity.

"We will undertake a thorough analysis of the outcome and draw necessary lessons," Bhattacharya added.

The CPI(ML)L, which fought on 20 seats as a part of the Mahagatbandhan alliance this time, won two -- Paliganj and Karakat -- and lost Agiaon by a slender margin of 95 votes.

"In three other seats -- Balrampur, Dumraon and Zeeradei -- the margin of defeat was less than 3,000. The vote share of the party has been close to three per cent," Bhattacharya said.

The CPI(M), which contested four seats, won only Bibhutipur. The CPI did not win any of the seats it contested.

The CPI(ML)L got around 2.84 per cent votes, according to the ECI website, down from 3.16 per cent in the 2020 Bihar assembly polls. The vote share of the CPI(M) was 0.60 per cent this time, and CPI got around 0.74 per cent of the votes cast.

In 2020, the CPI(M) had polled 0.65 per cent of the votes, while the CPI got 0.83 per cent of the vote share. In that election, the CPI(ML)L had contested 19 seats and won 12, the CPI had contested six seats, while the CPI(M) fought on four seats.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the CPI(M-L) won two seats of Ara and Karakat out of the total 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state. PTI AO NSD NSD