Bihar: What is at stake for Modi in the first election after Covid-19?

 

The state is currently ruled by a coalition that includes Modi's BJP and the election will be the first political test of how voters view his handling of the pandemic.

Bihar Election 2020: India’s eastern state Bihar goes to polls Wednesday in an exercise spread across two weeks. The election is the first test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party since the Covid-19 pandemic struck. A strict nationwide lockdown has resulted in the country’s worst economic downturn in decades and both unemployment and virus infections have soared. India trails only the U.S. as the nation with the highest case tally.

1. Why does Bihar matter so much?

The state is one of the country’s poorest and lags on most development indicators, but its massive population makes it politically significant. With some 104 million people -- the entire population of Egypt -- it accounts for 40 seats in the 545-member lower house of federal parliament giving it outsize national influence.

The state is currently ruled by a coalition that includes Modi’s BJP and the election will be the first political test of how voters view his handling of the pandemic and the economic crisis and joblessness it has spawned.

A substantial win would also help Modi’s administration to wrest more seats in the upper house of parliament where it lacks a majority, making it easier to push through legislation for its economic reforms. A straight defeat or even a significant reduction in seats would dent Modi’s larger-than-life image and may also have implications for other state elections that will follow.

2. What’s the campaign focusing on?

The promise of creating millions of new jobs is the top campaign plank of every major player in the election.

A lack of employment has been a perennial problem in the state -- its unemployment rate was 10.2%, almost twice that of the entire country, according to the 2018-19 Periodic Labour Force Survey. This has pushed a large part of its workforce to migrate to other states.