By Ashok Malik

Bihar has delivered a tectonic verdict that will have a variety of implications for national politics and governance. In a sense, the decisive victory of the JD(U)-RJD-Congress combine sinks the electoral logic that has been prevailing since May 2014, when the BJP, led by Narendra Modi, earned a majority in the Lok Sabha and followed it up with a series of wins in state assembly elections from Maharashtra to Haryana to Jharkhand.

That road from 2014 is now over, and the long and unpredictable journey to 2019 has begun.

What does that mean? The next parliamentary contest is 3.5 years away and to be sure there are numerous state elections in between. No doubt the BJP will both win and lose its share. Yet, the coming together of two regional rivals –- Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav — in Bihar indicates the beginnings of a consolidation of state parties to check the BJP’s advance.

Kumar has the potential to be positioned as an alternative to Modi. Or, at least, be presented in the media and in public life as an equally successful chief minister as Modi was (one who has also won three elections), a non-dynast with a clean image, and a possible coalition-builder. If nothing else, Kumar’s swearing-in ceremony in Patna is likely to see a gathering of non-BJP politicians and CMs and become a rallying ground, literally, for those who have been seeking an effective platform to take on Modi.

Much will depend on the trust between the Congress and regional parties it has often had an uneasy relationship with. To cite a precedent, the team-building that Sonia Gandhi resorted to in the run-up to the 2004 Lok Sabha election should be on the Congress’ immediate agenda, knowing it cannot beat Modi on its own.

In Parliament, the Congress’ filibustering in the monsoon session would seem to have been validated (if that is the word) by the Bihar results and will inevitably find greater support from other opposition parties in the winter session. This will add to the Modi government’s headache.

A serious introspection is called for on the part of the BJP and the NDA government. In the period after 2004, the party carved a reputation for itself as being sensitive to India’s federal impulses and empowered a set of strong regional leaders. The best of these, Narendra Modi, later made the quantum leap to prime minister.

Post-2014, the BJP seems to have junked this template and resorted to an over-projection of Modi. True, this has won it many new states. But the quest for political expansion has taken its toll on Modi’s time and resources. It has come in the way of sober governance, and negotiated and layered legislative and policy processes in Delhi. On all of these, a course correction is necessary.

Further, the Modi government needs to ask itself what drawbacks and failings led to it frittering away so much political capital put together with such effort in 2014. State elections, even major state elections, take place all the time. But 18 months after a resounding Lok Sabha victory, did Bihar really need to become such a defining political test? The fact that it was allowed to clearly reflects some missteps. Comparisons can be drawn with the 1987 West Bengal election, when then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi pitched himself against Jyoti Basu and the CPI(M), only to face humiliation.

Indeed, references to the Rajiv Gandhi government (1984-89) are being made a trifle too frequently these days. The manner in which the narrative has been allowed to be shaped by adversaries and the uneasy feeling that the 2014 mandate has somehow been, if not lost at least misinterpreted or distorted by allied groups in recent months, has led to some alarm. Bihar is both a symptom and a product of this predicament.

It is for Modi to rescue and re-emphasise his mandate and bring the ship of state back on course. At the very least, a busy and robust period of economic policy-making in the coming weeks, right till the Budget of 2016, is recommended. That aside, the absence of strategic direction in key social sector ministries should be recognised and rectified in any ministerial reshuffle that may follow.

In the overall reckoning, the Bihar election has rudely ended the BJP’s reverie that it is set for unlimited growth while the Congress and regional parties conveniently disappear. Frankly, if Modi wants a second term, he has to act now as if the current term is his final term.

On Sunday, the Grand Alliance beat the NDA. More than that, urgency knocked out complacency.