It would seem that such a scenario is being realised with the instruments of fear, the State’s financial resources, and the Election Commission of India’s partisanship
Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves a ‘gamcha’ during the celebration of the NDA’s victory in the Bihar Assembly elections at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi. PIC/PTI
The landslide victory of the National Democratic Alliance comprising, in the main, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (United), in Bihar suggests India is closer to becoming a one-party system than it was until last year. A one-party system presumes the Opposition’s defeat is almost inevitable, and that it’s impossible to dislodge through elections the ruling party or the alliance it heads.
This is the conclusion to be drawn from the NDA and BJP’s tsunami-like victory in Bihar, where it bagged 202 out of 243 seats, building upon their already impressive triumphs in Maharashtra, Haryana, and Delhi after suffering a setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. These victories will further demoralise the Opposition, which will find the going tough in states due to elect new Assemblies before 2029.
India’s movement towards a one-party system has two principal drivers. One of these is the BJP deploying its extraordinary powers, derived from the party ruling the Centre, to cripple the Opposition. This it has done through raids on Opposition leaders, filing corruption cases, and jailing some of them. This instrument of fear, along with the formidable resources it commands, is wielded to split rival parties, debilitating the Opposition that’s dogged, anyway, by the perception that’s created of it being incorrigibly corrupt.
The second driver of the emerging one-party system is the Election Commission of India’s failure to inspire confidence in its neutrality, not least because the BJP has a preponderant say in the appointment of its commissioners. The Opposition has habitually taken to blaming its decimation, as in Bihar, on the alleged vote-theft undertaken through wrongful additions to and deletions from the voter list.
These flaws the ECI ostensibly sought to rectify by ordering a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls. There were massive deletions and additions to the voter list that was summarily revised earlier this year, leading to its contraction by around 40 lakh voters. It requires Opposition activists to go from door to door to check the extent to which the revision is genuine, a gargantuan task nearly impossible to accomplish with accuracy.
The ambiguity over the “purification” of Bihar’s electoral rolls has prompted the Opposition to claim the state was stolen, as Maharashtra was last year. Yet, unlike in Maharashtra, the NDA’s vote-share of 47.2 per cent in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Bihar came down marginally to 46.5 per cent in last week’s Assembly elections. By contrast, the vote-share of the Mahagathbandhan, comprising, in the main, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress and the Left, dipped from 39.2 per cent in 2024 to 37.6 per cent last week. These figures suggest both the alliances have stable support bases, which weren’t reset because of the SIR process.
Yet the SIR damaged the Opposition because it was suddenly sprung on it. Thrown off kilter, the Opposition spent crucial months before the Bihar Assembly elections appealing to the Supreme Court against the SIR and rallying the people against the alleged vote-theft, instead of preparing for the battle of the ballot.
In contrast to the Opposition, the NDA utilised those months to roll out welfare measures. None of these was as effective as the transfer of R10,000 to women 10 days before the elections were announced. Even after the Model Code of Conduct came into play, the Nitish Kumar government continued the payouts, sparking the Opposition’s charge that voters were being bribed for their votes.
The ECI’s refusal to stop the transfer of money to women in Bihar is a reversal of its own policy. For instance, in March 2004, after the Assembly elections were announced in Tamil Nadu, the disbursal of money under a cash support scheme for power consumption by farmers, introduced by late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, was stopped. Likewise, in March 2011, the ECI stopped the distribution of free colour TV sets, a Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government scheme, as soon as the poll schedule was declared.
The payment of Rs 10,000 to women is widely believed to have generated such excitement as to have Biharis forget their own misgivings about Kumar. Bihar isn’t an isolated case: Cash doles were also credited with turning around the BJP’s fortunes in Maharashtra, Haryana and Delhi.
It’d seem a one-party system is being built with the instruments of fear, the State’s financial resources, and the ECI’s partisanship.
It will increasingly become the case that the Opposition would lose heart even before entering the electoral arena, in the process becoming amnesic about the grammar of politics. This was evident in Bihar, where the vote-theft issue was rarely kindled after the Opposition’s yatra against it terminated. The Mahagathbandhan partners squabbled over seats for days, even delaying their campaign. It was as if they believed the alliance couldn’t win as the system was rigged against them.
From this perspective, their participation in the Assembly election has, paradoxically, had them legitimise the alleged rigging, even implicitly consent to it. If Bihar has indeed been stolen, there would be widespread disquiet, which the Opposition requires to harness for ensuring India doesn’t become a one-party system — and, with it, an unremitting Hindu rashtra. Or else, vote-theft will seem a lame excuse for explaining
electoral debacles.
The writer is a senior journalist and author of Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste.
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