In 20-odd seats of the 243, independents notched up more votes than the victory margin of the winners. In 20-odd seats of the 243, independents notched up more votes than the victory margin of the winners.

If at the beginning of the Bihar elections it was Lalu Prasad who was described as the “joker of the pack”, at the end of the elections it was independent candidates who turned out to be the real game-changer. With a vote share of 9.4 per cent, higher than the Congress’s 6.7 per cent, independents won four seats and spoilt the chances of many in the extremely closely fought elections.

In 20-odd seats of the 243, independents notched up more votes than the victory margin of the winners. In most of these, it was the BJP that ended up second. Also, many of these independents were of the upper castes, a constituency that is viewed as the BJP’s base. Some of these candidates had been denied BJP tickets because the party leadership had not seen eye to eye with local leaders.

While the “vote-splitting” possibilities of parties such as the Samajwadi Party and Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM had been analysed, the possibilities of independents taking the battle away from the BJP had never featured in the run-up to the elections.

BJP candidate Amarendra Pratap Singh lost the Arrah assembly constituency to the RJD’s Mohammed Nawaz Alam by the slender margin of 666 votes. Eight other candidates polled more votes than that margin, the highest number going to a CPI(ML) candidate. Among independents, the highest number of votes was 1,710, polled by Jitendra Kumar. The sitting Lok Sabha MP from Arrah, R K Singh, has been one of the most vocal critics of his party’s ticket distribution strategy since before polling had started.

In Jhanjharpur, where the BJP’s Nitish Mishra, son of former chief minister Jagannath Mishra, lost to the RJD’s Gulab Yadav by 834 votes, independent candidate Sunil Kumar Jha polled 7,022 votes, several times Nitish’s margin of defeat.

In Narkatiaganj, BJP candidate Renu Devi lost to the Congress’s Vinay Varma by 16,061 votes, a margin that was less than half the 39,200 votes polled by Rashmi Varma, sitting BJP MLA who had been denied the ticket and fought as an independent. Most of these constituencies have an upper-caste presence which, had it been consolidated, could have worked to the BJP’s favour.

While a clutch of issues from reservation to price rise to Amit Shah’s remark on firecrackers in Pakistan has been held responsible for the NDA’s poor performance, many within the BJP believe that the greatest damage was done by the disgruntlement of ground workers — as had happened in Delhi — because of over-involvement of the central leadership in micromanaging the polls. The party’s inability to reconcile its own cadre and get disgruntled elements back into its fold may have cost it the prestige battle that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah had turned the election into.

In Bettiah, Renu Devi of BJP lost to Madan Mohan Tiwari of Congress by 2,320 votes while independent candidate Sameer Hasan polled 2,851 votes. In Bhagalpur, senior BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Choubey’s son Arijit Shashwat lost to the Congress’s Ajeet Sharma by 10,658 votes; independent candidate Bijay Sah got 15,212 votes. There were also 2,500 NOTA votes in this seat.

In Kasba, the BJP’s Pradip Kumar Das lost to Mohammed Afaque Alam by 1,794 votes while independent candidate Sanjay Mirdha got 4,777 votes. In Barauli, the BJP’s Rampravesh Rai lost to the RJD’s Mohd Nematullah by 504 votes while independent candidate Mukesh Rai got 3,819. The BJP lost the contest in Ekma to the JD(U)’s Manoranjan Singh by 8,126 votes; here, independent candidate Ranjeet Singh candidate got 28,345 votes.

The BJP’s allies, who fared worse than the major partner, too suffered because of independents. In Hathua, Mahachandra Prasad Singh of Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM lost to the JD(U)’s Ramsewak Singh by 22,984 votes. Independent candidate Rajesh Kumar Singh polled 32,959.

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