Raised stakes after Bihar by-election results

By-elections for 18 assembly constituencies in Bihar have turned disappointing results for the ruling JDU govt. and Chief minister Nitish Kumar.

The Lalu and Paswan combine has captured 8 out of the 18 seats with the JDU and the BJP being able to win 4 and 2 each. The results are particularly disappointing after a stupendous performance by the JDU-BJP combine in the Loksabha elections this summer.

Putting aside the local and logical factors of what has gone against who at the ground level lets have an outsider's look at the results.

This reversal of fortunes for political parties in Bihar is not new at all. Infact, as I see, it is a continuous trend that has played itself out again but this time a bit too early. But then it does need a platform to play out and the bye-elections proved to be a perfect one for it.

• To start with 2004 general elections were swept by Lalu-Paswan-Congress combine that won 29 out of 40 seats.
• However one year later in 2005 assembly election there was no decisive mandate for any party, raising the curtain for political squabble that needed the intervention of the Supreme court.
• In the subsequent elections that same year JDU-BJP combine won power in the state and Nitish Kumar became chief minister.
• This summer's general elections have been swept again by the JDU-BJP combine winning 33 of the 40 seats.
• Now comes the latest turn around results from the electorate just 4 months after loksabha elections.
  

I am sure Lalu and Paswan would try to use these gains and weave webs of  over-confidence around themselves. Mudslinging of the worst kind is expected from the duo, afterall the state goes for polls next year and much is at stake for Lalu and many times more for the whole country.

Everyone who knows something or anything about Bihar would know how Lalu and his family have plundered the state for the better part of the last two decades. Nitish Kumar has been the only hope for the country to put a state so backward on the path of development.

Nitish Kumar should take these results in the stride and work harder to put these feudal elements out of power for much longer, for the collective good of the country and make Lalu realise that these results are a once-off affair.