Bypolls to ten Assembly seats in Bihar will take place today and it remains to be seen whether the Modi magic will continue or if Nitish and Lalu's alliance will be the winning formula.

Bypolls to ten Assembly seats in Bihar will take place today and it remains to be seen whether the Modi magic will continue or if Nitish and Lalu's alliance will find the winning formula.

The bypolls will be held in Hajipur, Chapra, Mohiuddinagar, Parbatta, Bhagalpur, Rajnagar(SC), Jale, Mohania (SC), Narkatiaganj and Banka. Altogether 94 candidates including 5 women are in the fray.

The elections are the first major political event after the general elections and are crucial for both, the BJP and the JD(U)-RJD alliance.

Where Lalu and Nitish are concerned, they have both hit the campaign trail hard and trying to fight public perception that theirs is only a marriage to stop the growing influence of BJP in the state. The two former colleagues had parted ways in 1994 when Nitish floated the Samata Party. Now it seems the duo are back as partners to fight what they call 'the communal forces' aka the BJP.

Nitish told reporters, "Our mutual differences are not as big as the communal forces. We were together in the past and we are together now." Lalu meanwhile has said that, "Nitish and I are from the same family. They said Nitish Kumar went for help to his big brother Lalu. Who else will he go to?"

Lalu has also openly questioned the BJP's secular credentials saying , "They want to bring Ram-raj into the country. I dare them to bring Ram-raj into the country and said that the alliance with Nitish, "has been formed to fight against and prevent such propaganda."

But it won't be so easy for Lalu-Nitish to sweep this by-election. According to a Hindustan Times report the two parties aren't exactly complimentary to each other. The report notes, "Socially and economically, Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu represent two equal and powerful caste groupings. They have been rivals — socially and politically — and even inimical."

Nitish is backed by the Kurmi caste, Lalu by the Yadavs and both groups are equally significant, and not friendly to each other.

As we had noted earlier, the aim for the duo is "to consolidate the Muslim, Yadav and backward caste votes. At stake are not just these 10 seats that the alliance is targetting -- Bihar goes to polls in 2015 and this Congress-JD(U)-RJD combine is their only hope to keep the BJP from sweeping the state."

The Lok Sabha elections saw BJP and its allies bag 31 seats out of 40 and even Dalits voted in favour of the NDA, while Lalu and his family members lost the elections too, evidence that the Yadav vote had not remained consolidated.

For Nitish the problems of allying with Lalu are much more. Nitish has built his image in Bihar on the plank of development, and he came to power on a largely anti-Lalu wave. Lalu, for his part is remembered in Bihar for mismanagement, and corruption, most notably the fodder scam.

If this combine does not click, rebuilding his personal credibility will be that much tougher for Nitish. This has to be especially true for a man who forced the comfortably placed JD (U)-BJP alliance in Bihar, which had ruled for two consecutive terms, to collapse over Narendra Modi's ascendancy as prime ministerial candidate. Personal credibility was all he walked away with from that mess, something he has already tossed into the stakes with this alliance.

As Firstpost columnist from Patna Manoj Chaurasia had noted in this earlier piece, "in the general elections Lalu's RJD more or less held on to its core support base despite the Modi wave. He secured a shade more than 20 percent of the vote share while Nitish's party shrunk to 15 percent despite being in power in the state. Nitish was never a mass leader. Faced with irrelevance in politics he needed to ride piggyback on someone popular to revive himself."

He had also pointed out that in the Lok Sabha elections Nitish also "got a cold response from the Dalit and Ati-pichhda (extremely backward) class voters who account for some 15 and 32 percent of the total state’s population respectively."

For both Lalu and Nitish, the current by-election is a major test, one that they have to pass before the 2015 state assembly elections in Bihar, else it could put a serious question mark on both their political careers.