SWOT Analysis of Janata Parivaar for Bihar Polls 2015 – Part 1, SWOT Analysis Bihar Polls , Bihar Assembly election 2015

SWOT Analysis of Janata Parivaar for Bihar Polls 2015 – Part 1, SWOT Analysis Bihar Polls, Bihar Assembly election 2015, Bihar polls, Bihar Election 2015, Janata Parivaar, JD(U), Lalu Prasad Yadav, Narendra Modi, NDA, Nitish Kumar, RJD, JDS, HD Devegowda

New Delhi: Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh with RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, JDS chief HD Devegowda and JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar during a news conference to announce their merger in New Delhi on Wednesday. Six parties of the erstwhile Janata parivar decided to merge and form a new party with Mulayam Singh Yadav its chief. 

Janata Parivaar is trying to make a comeback in national politics with six of the breakaway factions namely Mulayam’s Samajwadi Party, Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), Lalu’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular), Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal and late Chandrasekhar’s Samajwadi Janata Party forming a block to fight elections in the near future.

The first test of this block is the Bihar elections where friends turned foe turned friends again – Nitish and Lalu – have come together to stop the BJP juggernaut. Nitish after breaking away from BJP / NDA was routed in Lok Sabha elections in May 2014.

Take a look on this SWOT .

STRENGTHS

1.  Alliance has declared its CM candidate

The Janata alliance has declared Nitish Kumar as its CM candidate. This after hectic parleys and initial opposition from Lalu. Lalu was forced to compromise because of intervention of his ‘Samadhi’ Mulayam who is the head of the re-christened Janata Parivaar.  Lalu was actually not making noise about CM candidate, he wanted a better / fair deal for seats distribution. 

Modi’s PM candidature helped BJP immensely in Lok Sabha polls. BJP logic is it didn’t announce CM candidate in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir and still won banking on Modi wave. It worked in those states because BJP was fighting against governments facing huge anti-incumbency (Maharashtra – 15 years, Haryana – 10 years, Jharkhand – khichdi government). In Bihar though Nitish has been ruling the state for 10 years, 7.5 years out of this was with BJP. He is still popular. So anti-incumbency factor is not at play here.

2. Nitish leads popularity charts as most suitable CM choice with 52% votes

Nitish is a popular CM. People of Bihar like him for bringing an end to jungle raj and ushering in an era of development in the state. As per latest opinion poll carried out by HT-Nielsen, he is the best choice for CM for 52% of the voters. BJP’s Sushil Modi is at the 2nd choice with 42% votes. While BJP is trying to make it a Nitish vs Narendra Modi affair, people like Delhi realise that the PM  can’t be CM. 64% people who voted for NDA in Lok Sabha elections said they were satisfied with Nitish government performance in the state (Source CSDS-Lokniti analysis).

52% respondents said Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was more popular in Bihar than Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 45% people said the Prime Minister was more popular as per ABP news opinion poll.

3. Good development work during 2005-2015

The State has historically been backward and was part of the infamous BIMARU. Post the establishment of the NDA Government (BJP + JDU) in 2005, Bihar registered amongst the highest GDP growth in the country (of course, low base effect has played a role). 

January 2010, Central Statistics Organisation reported that in the five-year period between 2005–2009, Bihar’s GDP grew by 11.03%, which made Bihar the 2nd fastest growing economy in India during that 5 year period, just behind Gujarat’s growth of 11.05%.

4. Arithmetic favours alliance -16% JDU vote share + 30% RJD+Cong+NCP share 30% is > 39% vote share of NDA

NDA got 39% vote share in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. JDU and RJD fighting separately got 16% and 30% respectively. If JDU and RJD would have fought together (assuming all votes would have transferred) the Janata alliance would have won 28/40 seats.

5. Polarisation of Muslim vote bank in favour of alliance

Bihar has the second largest population of Muslims in the country (16.5%). They have traditionally been a vote bank of Lalu and part of the famous MY combination which propelled him to rule the state for 15 years. 64% of Muslims voted for Lalu and 21% for Nitish in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. 

WEAKNESS

1. Distrust among the 2 cadres – JDU and RJD

JDU and RJD cadre has not happily embraced the top leadership decision to fight state polls together. As per media reports 65 / 115 MLAs of JDU were not in favour of the alliance. 

2. Poor image of Lalu – corruption in fodder scam and jungle raj during his 1990-2005 tenure

This is the biggest drawback of this alliance. It has two facets – Development (Nitish), Jungle Raj (Lalu). They can’t happen together and are mutually exclusive.

3. Seat distribution arrangement yet to be finalised and there are rebel candidates in both RJD and JDU camps

The biggest headache for this alliance is that they will have to grapple with rebel candidates. Seat adjustment has not yet been finalised however it is likely to be 40:40:20 as in state by-polls and MLC elections. This means 100 each for JDU / RJD and 40 odd for Congress / NCP / CPI. JDU currently has 118 MLAs, even if we remove rebels owing allegiance to Manjhi, this means, some sitting candidates won’t get tickets. They would most probably stand as independents or be given tickets by NDA. JDU fought on 141 seats in 2010 assembly polls and RJD on 168 seats. So 40 odd rebels for Nitish and 70 odd for Lalu. This is big. Depending upon their caste they will eat into Janata alliance votes. BJP which last fought on 102 seats and doesn’t have candidates on all seats could accommodate some of these rebels.

4. Forward caste accounting for 15% of population may not vote for Nitish because of Lalu

64% people who voted for NDA in Lok Sabha elections said they were satisfied with Nitish government performance in the state. The highest vote share of NDA was from upper castes (12% out of 39%). A portion of this segment could have voted for Nitish because of his good track record. However, his alliance with Lalu has irked this section and they may not vote for Nitish.

5. 2.5 years of Nitish government rule after JDU broke away from NDA has seen political turmoil (Manjhi episode)

While Nitish talks of development under his regime and voters acknowledge it, the last 2 years after Nitish broke away from NDA has witnessed political turmoil in the state. First Nitish was busy in one-upmanship with Modi pre Lok Sabha polls from July 2013 to May 2014. Post Lok Sabha he resigned taking moral responsibility and appointed his protégé Manjhi as CM.

Some months down the line, Manjhi turned guru leaving his protégé tag leading to a tug of war with Nitish. Finally, he stepped down as CM after lot of mudslinging. This showed JDU in poor light.

Then for a few months Nitish and Lalu fought for nomination of CM candidate. 62% people said the performance of BJP-JDU government was better than run exclusively by JDU as per ABP news opinion polls.

src: niticentral

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