For the Bihar Assembly election 2020, the schedule is out and several newly formed parties and alliances are showing their presence in the election. They have also started giving shape to their strategies. Almost all parties in the state polls have a goal of making their presence felt over a bigger national platform. Some of the newly political parties like Azad Samaj Party (ASP), Bahujan Mukti Party, Jantantrik Vikas Party, Social Democratic Party of India, Plurals, Jago Hindustan Party, Social Democratic Party of India, Rashtriya Adhikar Party, Janta Dal, Samyukta kisan vikas party and many others are trying to make a breakthrough in the Bihar polls 2020. They have already started or completed the selection of probable candidates and constituencies. Some parties have also formed alliances with like-minded political groups ahead of the state polls.

Vanchit Bahujan Agadhi (VBA), which has its presence in Maharashtra, will form an alliance with AIMIM led by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi. Owaisi’s party, which has its presence in Kosi-Seemanchal region, had begun its battle with a victory from the Kishanganj assembly constituency in the Bypolls held last year. AIMIM’s expansion may deal a negative impact for RJD- Grand Alliance (GA) or Mahagathbandhan. A political observer said that the ruling NDA may benefit from Owaisi’s growth in Bihar and it would be too hard for RJD keep a grip over its Muslim-Yadav combination that had kept the party in power from 1990 to 2005.

Similarly, Jan Adhikar Party led by former MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav has formed a new alliance with Chandrasekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party, named Progressive democratic alliance under the leadership of MK Faizi.

Plurals party, led by Pushpam Priya Choudhary has arrived earlier this year as a breath of fresh air in Bihar state elections. It seeks to use the ideas of Sustainable Development Goals and multiple realities for the betterment of the people. Pushpam Priya, daughter of Vinod Chaudhary (of JD(U)), is the CM aspirant from this party which in its list-declaration has identified all the candidates only as Biharis. She has an idea to redefine the politics in Bihar breaking away from the mainstream gerontocratic politics which is centred around caste and religious lines. Her party would be contesting on all the 243 seats in the state assembly. Her arrival in the Bihar politics on Women’s day, this year, is set to challenge the prevalent idea of politics in Bihar. She stated over her twitter handle that “Bihar deserves better and better is possible”.

However, Professor D M Diwakar, former director of AN Sinha Institute of Social Studies said that “New political parties become active during every election”. He added that this is a common feature in Indian politics and that they have their own agenda, but only few of them have their vote base.

Another challenge to the current CM-Nitish Kumar can be Jitan Ram Manjhi of Hindustani Awam Morcha.  Though Manjhi is in alliance with JD(U) under the NDA, the proportion of the seats won by the BJP and JD(U) can be a deciding factor in the upcoming polls. Manjhi remains a prominent face of the SCs and MBCs in Bihar, who have felt deprived when many of their people could not make it back to Bihar when Lockdown was declared. This has led to a gathering steam of anger among them against the Nitish Kumar government at Patna, which can go in favour of Manjhi to the indirect benefit of BJP.

The author is a student member of Amity Centre of Happiness.

Editor Opinion, Biswarup Mukhopadhyay has given important inputs for the article.