Do actual voters in Bihar think the same? Not according to our analysis. Nitish Kumar’s party has only been above the Congress in electoral popularity, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been the state’s most popular party–its popularity preceding Prime Minister Narendra Modi–and no more than 17 of 100 voters chose to vote only for Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), or JD (U), according to our analysis of electoral results over six elections since 2004.
 
Over the last decade, voters in Bihar have voted in six elections – 2004 Lok Sabha, 2005 Vidhan Sabha, 2009 Lok Sabha, 2010 Vidhan Sabha, 2014 Lok Sabha and 2015 Vidhan Sabha. Over this period, of every 100 Bihari voters, roughly 37 voted only for the BJP, 30 only for Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), no more than 17 only for the JD (U), and 10 only for the Indian National Congress (INC).
 
In other words, Nitish Kumar’s supposed popularity in Bihar is not borne out in electoral numbers. So, how has Nitish Kumar been chief minister for nearly 13 years since 2005? The answer lies in Nitish Kumar’s manoeuvring of electoral alliances and taking advantage of India’s first-past-the-post electoral system.
 
Over the course of six elections in Bihar since 2004, electoral alliance partners have always changed, with inter-breeding across the four main parties: JD(U), BJP, RJD and INC. So, it has been difficult to accurately judge voter support for each of these parties.
 
But there was at least one instance across these six elections when each of these parties went solo, and that gives us a way to reasonably gauge standalone support for the party and/or its leader. In 2009 and 2010, the RJD and INC contested on their own. In 2014, it was the JD(U) and BJP. In 2015, the BJP went solo. Here is the electoral map of the six elections:
 

 
Why the BJP has the least to gain from any alliance
 
The BJP is the most popular stand-alone party in Bihar, chosen exclusively by–as we said–37 of every 100 voters, regardless of alliances. The BJP’s support in Bihar has been the most stable (37-39%), and they appear to have the least to gain from any alliance.
 
The BJP’s popularity in Bihar predates Narendra Modi’s 2014 general election victory. Lalu Yadav’s RJD is the second-most popular party on a stand-alone basis with roughly 30 of 100 voters.
 
Nitish Kumar, contrary to perception, is the least popular among the three, with 17 of 100 Biharis voting for him alone. The chart below shows the contested vote share for each of these parties across these four elections, and the highlighted vote share is their smallest vote share when they contest on their own.
 

 
To delve further, there are 55 assembly constituencies in Bihar that had a JD (U) candidate in each of four elections between 2009 and 2015. In these 55 constituencies, only 22% of the voters chose JD(U) when it contested alone, but when it allied with either the BJP or the RJD, 43% chose the JD(U).
 
In other words, a large number of Biharis only vote for the JD(U) only when it is in an alliance. In contrast, there were 58 constituencies with an RJD candidate in each of the four elections we mentioned: 33% chose the RJD when it stood alone and 45% chose it when it entered into an alliance. The RJD has a much stronger stand-alone support than the JD(U).
 
What is more striking is that Nitish Kumar is Chief Minister largely due to Lalu Yadav’s RJD. In the 2015 elections when Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav and the Congress joined hands, it was Lalu Yadav’s supporters that turned this alliance to victory. The RJD and JD(U) contested in 101 constituencies each as alliance partners in the 2015 election. In more than half of these constituencies, the JD(U) could not transfer all of its votes to this alliance, while the RJD transferred all its votes from 2014 to this alliance in nearly three-fourths of constituencies.
 
The direct beneficiary of this transfer was JD(U), which saw its vote share rise from 17% in 2014 to 41% in 2015.  It is clear from the data that Nitish Kumar would not be the Chief Minister of Bihar today had RJD’s core supporters not been as loyal and deserted this alliance.
 
Only when Nitish Kumar was left to contest on his own in 2014 did it become very clear that his support base is not nearly as large and loyal as was perceived. Nitish Kumar needs either the BJP or the RJD more than they need him. As the legendary investor Warren Buffet famously said: “Only when the tide goes out do you know who is swimming naked.”
 
(Chakravarty is Founding Trustee, IndiaSpend. Research support by Ishita Trivedi of IDFC Institute)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi chairs a meeting on demonetisation, on November 13, 2016. An IndiaSpend analysis of the Prime Minister’s seven speeches reveals a shifting of the narrative of the demonetisation action and its objectives.

It was unambiguously clear from the Prime Minister’s speech that the primary motivation for the sudden withdrawal of nearly 86% of the country’s currency was the evil of black money.

The next day, the papers termed it a “war on black money”. PayTM, a mobile payment app, hailed the decision with a full-page ad and the Prime Minister left for Japan.
 
By the time the Prime Minister returned from Japan, the move had been christened “demonetisation” in English, “notebandi” in Hindi and there was a war-time like rationing of currency in the country.
 
The Prime Minister made six speeches across the country on the demonetisation policy between November 13 and November 27, including his radio address to the nation, Mann Ki Baat, according to data available on the Prime Minister’s personal website. The text of all the speeches are available on the website.

 
A data analysis of the speeches (after translation) reveals a shifting of the narrative of the demonetisation action and its objectives.
 
In his speech on November 8, 2016, when he announced the demonetisation policy, the Prime Minister used the phrase “black money” four times more than “fake/counterfeit currency”.
 
By November 27, he used the phrase “digital/cashless” thrice as much as “black money” with no mention of “fake currency”. Recall, there was zero mention of “digital/cashless” in the initial November 8 speech.
 
The chart below shows the ratio of the three narratives–“black money”, “fake currency” and “cashless/digital pay”–in each of the Prime Minister’s speeches over three weeks and seven speeches.
 
In other words, in the same speech, how many times did the Prime Minister use each of these phrases to describe the reasons for demonetisation which can be used as a proxy to understand what the Prime Minister believes was the primary objective for this mammoth exercise.
 
 
The saffron line representing the “cashless/digital” phrase in the Prime Minister’s speeches went from 0 in the November 8 speech to a 73% ratio in the November 27 speech.
 
The green line representing the phrase “fake currency” went from 22% to 0 in the same period suggesting the Prime Minister no longer believes that terror financing was the primary or secondary driver of this demonetisation exercise.
 
The black line representing the phrase “black money” went from a high of a 80% ratio on November 8 to only 27% on November 27. Apparently, it is no longer a “war on black money” but instead a “war on all currency” to go cashless.
 
So, between November 8 and November 27, the objective for the demonetisation exercise has swung from black money elimination to going cashless, as evident in the Prime Minister’s speeches.
 
To be sure, urging citizens to use less cash and resort to digital transactions is a laudable objective and must certainly be encouraged. But when a decision was taken to remove a whopping 86% of the country’s currency overnight with all its attendant costs, one would have hoped there was one strong rationale for it, even if it meant achieving multiple objectives.
 
Either the Prime Minister has realised that the original primary objective of eliminating black money may not be met or there was not adequate thought behind the decision.
 
(Chakravarty is Senior Fellow in Political Economy at IDFC Institute & Founding Trustee, IndiaSpend. Author thanks Puja Das of IndiaSpend for help with Hindi translation.) 

Courtesy: India Spend

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