Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Grand Alliance scored a stunning win on Sunday in the assembly elections, dealing a major blow to the BJP and sparking opposition attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who led his party’s challenge in the bitterly contested battle.
A sombre Modi telephoned Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Nitish Kumar and congratulated him as the Grand Alliance – which also includes the RJD of Lalu Prasad and the Congress – was poised to win 161 of the 243 seats, leaving the BJP-led four-party combine with just 74 seats. Smaller parties including the BSP and the CPI-ML were set to win eight seats.
The Grand Alliance was just one short of a two-third majority to give Nitish Kumar his third straight victory in Bihar.
The JD-U, the RJD and the Congress grabbed over 41 percent of all the votes in the five-phased ections that began on October 12 and concluded on November 5. The BJP alliance got 38 percent.
The Shiv Sena, the BJP’s junior ally in Maharashtra, joined Chief Ministers Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi and Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal as well as former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah in hailing the Grand Alliance win and taking a dig at Modi.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was confident of ousting Nitish Kumar, admitted its calculations had gone wrong in one of the toughest state elections in recent times.