In Bihar, RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, son of party chief Lalu Prasad and ex-deputy chief minister, spearheaded the Opposition’s campaign, while in UP Akhilesh led his party’s charge from the front.

Although the RJD improved its tally from the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when it had drawn a blank, Tejashwi clearly could not replicate Akhilesh’s feat in his state. Here are five major reasons why Tejashwi could not get the better of the BJP like Akhilesh did:

‘M-Y’ to ‘PDA’

In the 2019 polls, the SP had won just 5 seats in UP as it had then contested 37 of the state’s 80 seats as part of an alliance with the BSP.

In the current polls, the SP contested 62 seats while its ally Congress fought from 17 seats.

Confident of retaining its core Muslim-Yadav (MY) vote base and seeking to make inroads into the votes of non-Yadav OBCs, who were seen to be consolidated in favor of the BJP, the SP fielded only five candidates from the Yadav community – all from party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav’s family. In 2019, the SP had fielded 10 Yadav faces among its 37 candidates. This time, the SP also fielded only four Muslim candidates. Akhilesh, in fact, coined a new slogan for the vote base he banked on, expanding from “MY” or Muslim-Yadav to “PDA” or “Pichde (backward classes or OBCs), Dalits, Alpasankhyak (minorities)”.

So, the lion’s share of the SP tickets went to non-Yadav OBCs – 27 candidates –, Dalits – 15 candidates in Scheduled Caste (SC)-reserved seats and one in a general constituency – and 11 upper caste faces (including four Brahmins, two Thakurs, two Vaishyas and one Khatri).

As part of its Dalit outreach, the SP fielded a Pasi (Dalit) face Awdhesh Prasad even from a general seat – the crucial constituency of Faizabad (Ayodhya) – who emerged as the victor.

While Tejashwi has also been making efforts to expand the RJD’s base beyond its traditional ‘M-Y’ vote bank, he could not achieve much success as evidenced by the poll outcome.

The RJD and the Congress in Bihar contested 23 and nine seats respectively.

While the RJD won four seats, the Congress got three seats with two seats bagged by the CPI(ML)L. On the other hand, the BJP won 12 seats out of 17 it contested, while the JD(U) got 12 of 16 seats it fought from, with the Chirag Paswan-led LJP(Ram Vilas) winning all five seats it contested.

Drawing a comparison between Akhilesh and Tejashwi, poll analyst Sheetal P Singh said, “While Akhilesh gave tickets to more non-Yadav and non-Muslim candidates giving various caste groups a good representation, Tejashwi gave tickets to a good number of Kushwahas (non- Yadav OBCs). In comparison, Akhilesh also gave tickets to Kurmi, Nishad and some EBC (Extremely Backward Classes) faces. While Tejashwi looked for caste leader like Mukesh Sahani (Vikassheel Insaan Party chief), Akhilesh directly tried to give representation to such castes beyond his traditional vote base.”

Of its 23 candidates, the RJD fielded eight Yadavs, four Kushwahas, two EBC nominees, four Dalits, two Muslims, two upper caste faces and one Bania.

Nitish factor

Unlike Akhilesh, Tejashwi had to face the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U), which proved to be a game-changer in Bihar for the NDA, with Nitish holding on to his support base in the EBC and Mahadalit communities.

Of its 16 candidates, the JD(U) fielded six EBC faces, three Kushwahas, one Kurmi (OBC), two Yadavs, two upper caste nominees, one Muslim and one Dalit.

Nitish’s support in the women constituency also played a key role in ensuring the NDA’s dominance. The Nitish government has provided 35% quota in government jobs for women besides having ensured 50% quota in panchayat and local bodies for them.

The JD(U) and the LJP(RV) ensured that the social arithmetic of the NDA remains formidable.

Regional influence

In Bihar, the INDIA bloc dominated three regions – Shahabad, Magadh and Seemanchal. It put up an impressive show by wresting away three seats –

Arrah, Buxar and Sasaram – in Shahabad, and two seats – Aurangabad and Karakat – in Magadh. It also bagged the prestigious Pataliputra seat, where RJD’s Misa Bharti defeated sitting BJP MP Ramkripal Yadav. One major reason for Misa’s victory was her outreach beyond the RJD’s traditional MY base.

The RJD’s victory in Buxar, dubbed “mini Kashi” because of its proximity to Varanasi, assumes more significance as the BJP considers it as one of its safest seats, represented earlier by former Union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey. In the Buxar seat, the RJD’s leader and ex-agriculture minister Sudhakar Singh – Rajput leader and son of Jagdanand Singh, state RJD chief and ex-Buxar MP – defeated the BJP’s Mithilesh Tiwari, which was attributed to the party’s deft social engineering in splitting. the upper caste votes, which have otherwise remained a part of the NDA’s core base.

In Aurangabad, the RJD succeeded in splitting the OBC Kushwaha vote too as its low-profile Abhay Kushwaha trounced the BJP’s incumbent MP Sushil Kumar Singh.

The RJD also succeeded in transferring its votes to its INDIA allies in some crucial seats – including Arrah, where the CPI (ML)L’s Sudama Prasad got the better of the BJP’s high-profile candidate and ex-Union minister RK Singh, or in Sasaram. , where the Congress’s Manoj Kumar defeated the BJP’s Shivesh Kumar.

In the Seemanchal region, the RJD helped the Congress clinch the polls in the Kishanganj and Katihar seats.

Hurdles in north Bihar, Kosi

Across the river Ganga from Patna, the RJD failed to win any north Bihar seat, stretching from Hajipur to Valmiki Nagar bordering Nepal, and also from Saran to Gopalganj bordering UP. The party also failed to wrest from the NDA the Mithilanchal seats of Darbhanga, Jhanjharpur and Madhubani in addition to the Supaul and Madhepura seats in the Kosi region.

One key factor for the RJD’s poor showing in these regions was said to be the virtual non-transfer of the allies’ votes to the party. The VIP itself lost badly to the NDA in the East Champaran, Gopalganj and Jhanjharpur seats. VIP leader Sahani, who had switched to the INDIA camp ahead of the polls, received a setback in his bid to emerge as a prominent Mallah EBC face.

RJD’s poor strike rate

The RJD topped the vote percentage chart by garnering 22.14% votes, followed by the BJP’s 20.52% vote share and the JD (U)’s 18.52% votes.

However, the RJD could not convert its votes into seats. The overall vote share of the INDIA grouping came to 37% as against the NDA’s 45%.

In 2019, when the NDA had swept the state by winning 39 seats, its vote share was 54% as against the Opposition alliance’s 32% votes.

Tejashwi drew huge crowd across the state with his campaign centered on the pitch for jobs for the youth. The NDA managed to counter it by showcasing a slew of welfare programs being implemented by the NDA’s “double-engine government” – the Narendra Modi-led central dispensation as well as the Nitish government – ​​which include the free ration, Ayushman and Ujjwala schemes that also wooed a significant section of voters cutting across the caste lines.

— With inputs from Asad Rehman and Lalmani Verma in New Delhi