New Delhi:
Nitish Kumar will be the Chief Minister of Bihar again, and with a landslide victory.
Trends are now available for all the 243 seats in the Bihar Assembly and show the JD(U)-BJP combine surging ahead. And it is the junior partner in the state, the BJP, that has made the more major gains. It has swept urban Bihar.
A vote for development, says an exultant BJP. A vote for development, say NDTV.com surfers. Even the Congress says "all credit to Nitish Kumar", with Home Minister P Chidambaram saying, "If development argument has prevailed in Bihar, we should all be happy."
(Read: All credit to Nitish for his success: Congress)Together, the partners are ahead in 205 seats, 62 more than the 143 they had in 2005. The Lalu-Yadav-led RJD-LJP combine has been routed, leading in only 21 seats, down 40 from 64 last time. The ignominy has been doubled by Lalu's wife and former chief minister Rabri Devi trailing in both the seats she contested. Only Lalu's partner Ram Vilas Paswan may have some reason to smile, winning more seats than he had in 2005.
The BJP is celebrating, in the words of senior party leader, Arun Jaitley, "the victory of merit over dynastic politics."
(Read: Bihar has changed, says Jaitley) |
(Watch). Leader after BJP leader also hailed the Bihar government's "good governance" and exulted in the failure of the Congress.
The Rahul Gandhi magic notwithstanding, the Congress is almost irrelevant at only 6 seats, down from only 9 last time. Others, including the BSP and Independents, are leading in 6.
Results are in for 78 seats - 72 won by the JD(U)-BJP combine, 3 by Lalu-Yadav-led RJD-LJP combine, and 3 by others.
The Bihar elections were held in six phases and were closely watched both because there were new emerging voting trends in the state and because it was a clash of two major leaders, both lobbying hard to maintain their position. The Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi described it as the "most peaceful election ever."
(Watch: Most peaceful election ever: Quraishi)Among the most interesting voting trends was the fact that more women turned out to vote than men did - Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's campaign overtly wooed women voters.
This is part of Nitish Kumar's positioning himself as the leader of the New Age in Bihar - better law and order, improved administration and a new influx of industry. A positioning that seems to have won the day.
For as results poured in, caste or community factors seemed to come second to development. Development was the word that surged out in a cloud when we asked NDTV.com surfers to describe the
Bihar elections in One Word.
An analysis of the leads and results also threw up the word significantly. In 49 Muslim-dominated seats across the state, the JD(U)- BJP have swept 39, while RJD has only 5. The leading combine has also swept Naxal-dominated areas.