Bihar Assembly elections 12 October 2015 - 5 November 2015

[warandwar]

The RJD and JD(U) have apparently settled some of their issues, as they announced that Nitish Kumar will be the CM candidate after a talk with Prasad at the house of the SP's head.

Prasad described the deal as drinking "poison" in order to "crush the hood of this snake, this cobra of communalism"

[warandwar]

Election schedule announce.  5 rounds of from 10/10 to 11/5.  Counting is on 11/8.

Most recent developments seems to be working against JD(U)-RJD-INC grand alliance. NCP broke away as did SP from the alliance.  It seems SP-NCP will run as a bloc perhaps with the Left Front alliance.  JMM which had an understanding with  JD(U)-RJD-INC seems to have broken that understanding and will run candidates in tribal areas in Bihar.    On the other hand there are still no seat allocation deals clinched yet for BJP-RLSP-LJP-HAM.  There seems to be some sniping between HAM and LJP to be "the Dalit party" in the NDA.

A recent C-voter survey did give JD(U)-RJD-INC an edge.  C-Voter gives JD(U)-RJD-INC 116 and 132 seats out of 243 with 43% of the vote while it gives BJP-RLSP-LJP-HAM 94 to 110  with 40% of the poll.

Judging from the history of Dalit parties, I don't think the HAM/LJP dispute is going to be solved anytime soon.

[warandwar]

The AP/Telegana based Muslim communal party AIMIM will run candidates in the anti-NDA bastion of Seemanchal where they are a high concentration of Muslims.  Most likely this will not hurt the JD(U)-RJD-INC alliance as in the 2014 LS elections JD(U)-CPI and RJD-INC-NCP ran separately and the NDA still did not win here.  On the positive side of the ledger for JD(U)-RJD-NCP it seems that SS will also run in a bunch of seats which could hurt NDA although SS ran in 2010 Bihar assembly elections and did not seem to dent JD(U)-BJP.  JMM, a week after claiming it will run in all 243 seats now is coming around to joining JD(U)-RJD-INC.  Looking at how JMM did in 2010 Assembly elections and 2014 LS elections in Bihar, I can see JMM getting 2-3 seats.  Main problem with JMM joining JD(U)-RJD-INC is that the seats that JMM could realistically win happen to have JD(U) incumbents which JD(U) won when it was allied with BJP.   

What do you mean by SS? It can't be Shiv Sena.

[warandwar]

The AP/Telegana based Muslim communal party AIMIM will run candidates in the anti-NDA bastion of Seemanchal where they are a high concentration of Muslims.  Most likely this will not hurt the JD(U)-RJD-INC alliance as in the 2014 LS elections JD(U)-CPI and RJD-INC-NCP ran separately and the NDA still did not win here.  On the positive side of the ledger for JD(U)-RJD-NCP it seems that SS will also run in a bunch of seats which could hurt NDA although SS ran in 2010 Bihar assembly elections and did not seem to dent JD(U)-BJP.  JMM, a week after claiming it will run in all 243 seats now is coming around to joining JD(U)-RJD-INC.  Looking at how JMM did in 2010 Assembly elections and 2014 LS elections in Bihar, I can see JMM getting 2-3 seats.  Main problem with JMM joining JD(U)-RJD-INC is that the seats that JMM could realistically win happen to have JD(U) incumbents which JD(U) won when it was allied with BJP.   

What do you mean by SS? It can't be Shiv Sena.

SS is Shiv Sena.  My fault.  SHS is the correct 3 letter acronym in ECI for Shiv Sena.  I got lazy.

I didn't know there were Marathi in Bihar.

Funny, since the Sena constantly make hay over evil, weak (and worse: potentially Muslim!) North Indians taking away jobs from the swarthy, heroic Marathi Manus.

I've seen them referred to as SS a lot, I just was surprised they were contesting Bihar.

[warandwar]

I didn't know there were Marathi in Bihar.

Funny, since the Sena constantly make hay over evil, weak (and worse: potentially Muslim!) North Indians taking away jobs from the swarthy, heroic Marathi Manus.

I've seen them referred to as SS a lot, I just was surprised they were contesting Bihar.

There are no Marathi in Bihar.  SHS runs BJP rebel or extreme Hindutva candidates all the time in LS or even assembly elections outside of Maharashtra.  Of course all it does is hurts BJP, a bit, by taking a small share of the vote.  In fact SHS should do poorly in Bihar since in Maharashtra, SHS and its MNS splinter often demonize Biharis and other Northern Indians .  But in both 2009 and 2014 SHS actually ran some candidates in Northern Bihar urban areas and gets a OK percent of the vote (3%-6%.)  So SHS might actually do some damage to NDA if they make a real effort.

I see, I made the silly mistake of assigning coherent ideology to the Sena.

[warandwar]

Zee news survey NDA at 140 seats with 50.8% of the vote and JD(U)-RJD-INC at 70 seats with 42.5% of the vote.  It also has 41.2% of Muslims voting for NDA which makes this polls somewhat fishy. And if Muslims are voting for NDA at a 41.2% rate which I guess is in theory then NDA should really be at 200 seats.

And 33 extra seats for the Left/SP/AIMM seems a bit too high.

[warandwar]

SHS will contest 150 seats in Bihar.

I imagine most of these will more than a bit shady, to put it lightly.

[warandwar]

BJP is trying to break into the OBC and EBC vote base of the "grand alliance" by promising that the next BJP CM in Bihar will NOT be from a upper caste.  I guess BJP if figuring that it has the upper caste vote base locked up.  Of course INC is explicitly trying to go after the upper caste vote base.  We will see how this plays out.  My hunch is the BJP gamble will work an the upper caste at this stage is so anti-Lalu that they will still go with NDA.

Pretty classic BJP tactic. Modi, of course, is also OBC.

[warandwar]

BJP is trying to break into the OBC and EBC vote base of the "grand alliance" by promising that the next BJP CM in Bihar will NOT be from a upper caste.  I guess BJP if figuring that it has the upper caste vote base locked up.  Of course INC is explicitly trying to go after the upper caste vote base.  We will see how this plays out.  My hunch is the BJP gamble will work an the upper caste at this stage is so anti-Lalu that they will still go with NDA.

Pretty classic BJP tactic. Modi, of course, is also OBC.

In theory Modi belongs to Teli caste where in Bihar he would count as EBC which was carved out of OBC.  In theory EBC vote should be the deciding factor in this election. EBCs are not politically active leaders so this large voting bloc could go either way.  Traditionally they vote with the landlord they work for but that clientelist relationship is breaking down in a lot of places.

Think you're simplifying this a bit. Depends where the EBC would live, of course. Plenty of places where they would vote for CPI at some point, for example.

[warandwar]

SHS who is running in 150 seats claim that in Maharashtra SHS has never indulged in any kind of anti-migrant (Bihari) movement or atrocities on migrants.  This is clearly a false statement given the track record of SHS in Maharashtra.

Shiv Sena lying! Heavens to Betsy!