The BJP’s dominance endures not only because of its own strategy but because the opposition has abandoned politics as a mass, ideological, and organisational project. Until they face this reality, defeats like Bihar will continue. https://thewire.in/politics/the-business-as-usual-inertia-of-the-opposition-and-the-loss-of-bihar
The Bihar election results stunned many, though they should not have. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA swept the polls after deploying every available lever of state power – from the Election Commission’s controversial Special Investigation Review (SIR) of the voter list to Nitish Kumar’s blatantly illegal transfer of Rs. 10,000 to women voters after the poll schedule was announced. The opposition, meanwhile, ran on slogans of “vote chori” and vague promises like one government job per family. As in almost every election over the past decade, the contest was anything but free and fair.
Yet the more serious question is how the opposition, particularly the Congress, understood what it was up against. It showed no sign that it recognised the nature of the adversary or the scale of the political transformation underway. Trapped in its habitual “business as usual” inertia, it repeated the same script that has consistently delivered defeat.
by Anand Teltumbde
17/11/2025