Sena fails to repeat its 2015 performance in Bihar polls, SSR factor almost wipes out its past gains

@prashanthamine

Mumbai: Still sharing power in 2015 with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena had shocked its former ally in the Bihar assembly elections thwarting its bid to power in that state. The Sena had dented BJPs electoral prospects in 31 seats and that of the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 57 seats. Back then it patted itself on its back for teaching the BJP a lesson. This time around the repercussions of the Sushant Singh Rajput case wiped out all its past gains.

Former Shiv Sena leader and senior Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam’s sarcastic jibe aimed at the Sena’s 2020 Bihar performance spoke the truth. Nirupam had sarcastically remarked that the Sena polled fewer votes than the None Of The Above (NOTA) votes. He was not far from the truth.

In the November 2020 Bihar assembly elections, the Sena contested only 21 seats polling just 19,127 votes, with a vote share of just 0.05 percent. As against this the NOTA votes in all the 21 constituencies was 65,285 votes. While the overall NOTA votes tally for all the 243 seats was 7,06,252 votes in 2020, which is 1.68 percent. Either way the Sena votes and vote share is less than what the NOTA votes tally has been.

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As against this the Sena had contested 73 seats in 2015 and polled 2,11,136 votes at a vote share of 0.55 percent. The NOTA votes polled then were 9,47,279 and the vote share was 2.48 percent which was even then higher as it is the case even now in 2020.

In the 73 seats that the Sena had contested in 2015, the BJP managed to win just 14 seats, but lost 31 seats on account of Sena splitting its vote bank. The NDA on the other hand had won 16 seats, but lost 57 seats on account of Sena splitting its vote bank. But in reality the BJP had won 7 seats and lost 3 seats on account of Sena’s presence.

In 2020, the vote share has come down to just 0.05 percent and the votes down to 65,285 votes from the 2,11,136 votes in 2015. Although the overall NOTA votes polled were 7,06,252 were higher than the 2015 tally. However, the vote share of 1.68 percent is significantly less than the 2.48 percent share in 2015.

Out of the 21 assembly seats that the Sena contested this time around, only 7 of those seats it had contested in 2015 polls. Again out of those 7 seats, the Sena managed to increase its vote share in just two assembly constituencies. While, the vote share declined in the other 5 seats.

The sharp fall in Sena vote share is evident from the fact then when even considering the 7 seats, the Sena had polled 16,294 votes in 2015 as against just 7,921 votes in 2020 in the same 7 seats.

It is only in Bhadurganj and Kalyanpur seats that the Sena managed to increase its vote share somewhat. In 2015, the Sena had polled just 419 votes in Bhadurganj seat. This time around that tally rose by 2,228 votes to 2,647 votes. In Kalyanpur seat the Sena had polled 1,646 votes in 2015 and in 2020 polled 3,303 votes, a rise of 1,657 votes.

As for the rest of the 5 seats where the Sena vote share came down from 2015 to 2020 are as follows – Morwa, Narpatganj, Raghopur, Samastipur and Paliganj. In Morwa the vote share came down to 466 votes from 9,380 votes in 2015. In Narpatganj the vote share came down to 544 votes from 996 votes. In Raghopur the vote share came down from 709 votes in 2015 to 324 votes in 2020.

In Samastipur the vote share came down to just 230 votes in 2020 from 1,872 votes in 2015. While in Paliganj the vote share came down from 1,272 in 2015 to just 407 votes in 2020. Otherwise the votes polled in the rest of the 14 assembly constituencies in 2020 have been less than thousand or even five hundred votes. In 2015 in most of the 73 assembly constituencies, the Sena had polled in excess of thousand votes damaging the electoral prospects of the BJP which had to sit in the opposition benches until 2017.