Politicians Losing their Sleep Over Record Turnout

The voters have left the NDA and the Mahagathbandhan guessing by doing record polling in the first phase of the Bihar Assembly election. Prashant Kishor of Jan Suraaj has interpreted the surge in the polling numbers as migrants, their family and friends voting for his party for a new governance model in the state.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar says that the largest polling percentage led by women voters shows that that there is a wave in favour of the NDA alliance. But on the ground, there is no feel of any wave.

There is also another spin doing the rounds. As Lalu Prasad Yadav had defeated the Congress in 1990 Assembly election when the state had polled 62.04 percent, so this a vote for change. But Home Minister Amit Shah has dismissed this analysis saying that Nitish Kumar has retained power in the state since 2005 with lower turn outs.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission has revised the polling figures from 64.72 to 65.08 percent. The Commission so far has not released the gender-wife poll percentages. But some unusual factors are definitely driving the voters. The 10,000 transfers to women or migrants' enthusiasm to vote to end their distress, or the promise to provide jobs to one member to each jobless family may be one of them.

To attribute the record polling just to women beneficiaries of the Rs. 10,000 may be missing trees for the woods. It would also be rather naive and insulting to the voters' that they are incentivised only by doles. That they have no perspective in mind on governance.

The promise of one core jobs by the NDA and one job to each jobless family are tall promises, with no blueprints share by any one of them. But one aspect of the unprecedented polling is clear that Bihar may spring surprises on the counting day on November 14.