The people of Bihar had voted for Nitish Kumar on anti-Lalu platform. His joining of hands with Lalu may consolidate Muslim vote bank in favour of this alliance but they may find it difficult to transfer their traditional vote banks to each other because the hostilities of last 24 years have created a huge trust deficit between the two sides.
As far as the BJP is concerned, the biggest problem the party faces in Bihar is lack of any credible face which could inspire confidence in people. Sushil Kumar Modi is an old hand but lacks the charisma to attract the electorate. Two of its state leaders, Nand Kishore Yadav and Prem Kumar, have staked their claim for the Chief Minister's post and it gives an idea of the rampant factionalism in the party.
But the BJP's trump card is Narendra Modi who has got massive fan following in Bihar and it was Modi magic which gave the alliance an unassailable lead over its rivals. Will the new RJD-JD(U)-Congress combine be able to stop the ‘Modi magic' from working in Bihar?
Electoral politics in India is so complex that no prediction can be made with precision. In case of Bihar, all that can be said, as of now, is that the chemistry of politics does not present a very rosy picture for the RJD-JD (U)-Congress combine given the inconsistency in their political stands in the past. But in a state where everything gets reduced to caste equations, the new platform will definitely pose a greater challenge to the NDA alliance and it won't be shocking if they succeed in putting a break to the ‘Modi magic' in the state although it looks like a remote possibility, as on today.
