Bihar Election 2020

Though the Assembly poll remains 8 months away, the ball may be set rolling in August-quit itself with the Election Commission likely to announce the poll schedule in the remaining week of August, quickly after the flood season is over. Filing of nominations, scrutiny and withdrawal of names will take area in September whilst voting, in multiple stages, is in all likelihood to start from the first week of October. The EC can also have to preserve festivals like Dussehra, Diwali and Chhath in mind earlier than finalising the dates for a couple of levels of polling.
The Assembly election in Bihar assumes significance within the sense that the poll outcome will decide whether Nitish will become Chief Minister again (for the fourth time in a row) or the RJD, which emerged because the single largest party at some point of the 2015 Assembly polls, will prevent the NDA in its tracks via Grand Alliance, also referred to as Mahagatbandhan.
The poll dynamics in Bihar modified midway in 2017 after Nitish, who received the 2015 Assembly elections in alliance with the RJD and the Congress, dumped the Mahagatbandhan (in July 2017) and joined hands with the equal BJP which he had decisively decimated in a prestigious warfare with Narendra Modi.
Though the Opposition has because then cried foul and charged Nitish with hijacking the mandate, a lot water has flown down the Ganga in view that 2015. The easy sweep by NDA at some stage in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when it won 39 out of 40 parliamentary constituencies in Bihar, offers the clearest proof that Nitish-Modi mixture is a sure shot recipe for achievement in this a part of the cow-belt. Besides, Amit Shah’s reiteration remaining month that “Bihar Assembly polls could be contested underneath the leadership of Nitish Kumar” also dispels severa rumours floating around approximately the management issue inside the State.
As of now, the Nitish-led NDA regime in Bihar is in an fantastic function because the JD (U), BJP and the LJP gift themselves as a cohesive unit. Together, they command extra than 40 according to cent of the votes. On the other hand, Grand Alliance is neither ‘Grand’ nor there may be any right alliance among its constituents – RJD, Congress, Upendra Kushwaha-led RLSP (Rashtriya Lok Samata Party), Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM (Hindustan Awam Morcha) and VIP (Vikasheeel Insaan Party) headed with the aid of Mukesh Sahni, who belongs to the numerically-sturdy Mallah (boatmen) community.
The master strategist of the Mahagatbandhan in 2015, Lalu Prasad, is cooling his heels in Ranchi, serving a prison sentence inside the fodder scam. This has compounded the hassle for the faction-ridden Mahagatbandhan. But then, if Lalu, later this year, is enlarged on bail (he has already been granted bail in all cases except one), the entire poll dynamics could eventually change.