No one foresaw that the Maha-Gath-Bandhan (MGB) partners’ individual vote-shares will coalesce into one big number. Nitish and Lalu managed to retain the loyalty of their supporters to the extent that even MSY and Asaduddin Owaisi failed to steal from Nitish-Lalu vote banks. In that scenario, what the BJP did, or did not do, was immaterial. One could argue that this or that would have made a difference. Perhaps yes. But only a marginal difference; the net result would have remained the same: a landslide for MGB.

All the exit polls and surveys - except AXIS-IBN Exit Poll which gave BJP/MGB 64/176 with which AXIS-IBN were so taken aback with that they withheld publishing the Poll – got it wrong.  All the Pundits got it wrong. Little surprise then that BJP strategist got it wrong too. My question is: what strategy could BJP have followed to negate the coalescing of caste and communal votes in favour of MGB?

Every party puts its best foot forward in elections. Modi and Shah were BJP’s best bet and no one should be surprised that they took the lead in electioneering. Out of about 850 BJP rallies, PM addressed about 22, Shah about 80 and Raj Nath Singh about 53. So, 700 rallies were addressed by other leaders from Bihar. It is wrong therefore to argue that the local leaders had little role in electioneering.

BJP with 53 MLAs emerged as the largest single party in terms of vote-share: 25%. But that is not significant because it contested 157 seats. What is significant is that BJP’s MLA tally in the 20 years, 1980-2000, was 21-41 seats. In coalition with JDU, in 2005, it won nearly as many seats (55) as now (53); and in 2010, it won 91. It could be argued that in 2015 it has won the number of seats that have been its share historically.

The hype about BJP going alone and winning a landslide was because of its performance in General Election 2014, when it won 22/40 MP seats on its own and 31/40 seats in coalition with its allies; and because the of the Modi magic. It is well known that electorate votes differently in Lok Sabha and Assembly and local-bodies election. So the fact that it has voted differently should come as no surprise. As for Modi magic, the response to him at his rallies shows that it has not waned. But it was not enough to change the electorate’s traditional voting pattern.

But after all is said and done it cannot but be argued that the election result is a set back to the BJP, to the Shah image as a strategist, and to the Modi image as a charmer who can charm the birds off the trees.