'The question for the TMC is not whether it can hold its bastions, but whether it can expand effectively into regions where the BJP already possesses a good ecosystem.'
"Regional parties remain formidable, but Bihar's verdict underscores that historical strongholds, charismatic leadership and reliance on one primary bloc are no longer enough against the BJP's adaptability and tactical flexibility," Vignesh Karthik KR tells Rediff's Archana Masih..
Dr Karthik is a postdoctoral research affiliate of Indian and Indonesian politics at The Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, and a research affiliate at King's India Institute, King's College London.
- Part 1 of the Interview: 'Whenever Seat Arithmetic Permits, BJP Will Want Its Own Chief Minister'
The RJD is facing its toughest time yet with the eclipse of its patriarch Lalu Yadav and a bitter feud within the family. What do you think the future holds for the RJD? Will the party risk a split like the Shiv Sena or NCP in Maharashtra?
The RJD's crisis is multi-layered. Its core social bloc -- Muslims and Yadavs -- is fraying at both ends. Muslims are voting more tactically, as we saw in Seemanchal with AIMIM, and EBCs have hardened in their resistance to a visibly Yadav-dominated formation.
At the same time, the party's ticket distribution in 2025 signalled that it had not fully processed that shift -- Yadavs remained over-represented, and EBCs relatively under-represented.
Unlike the Shiv Sena or NCP where there is a fragmentation of Maratha votes already across regions, the RJD is anchored in a more consolidated caste base and in Lalu's enduring symbolic authority.
That makes an immediate, formal split less likely. The more probable trajectory is attrition: Local leaders drifting to the NDA, segments of the Yadav vote experimenting with other options, and smaller regional or caste outfits nibbling at its flanks.
The party's survival as a major player depends on two moves -- genuinely diversifying leadership beyond the family and the Yadav core; and rethinking alliances so that Muslim and EBC parties are partners rather than afterthoughts.
Absent that, the RJD may not collapse dramatically, it may simply shrink over time into a mid-sized player whose best years are behind it.
How has the verdict put a question mark on the regional parties in India? Particularly, the Samajwadi Party in UP and the TMC in Bengal?
Bihar doesn't predict outcomes in Uttar Pradesh or Bengal, but it does highlight a vulnerability that many regional parties share: Strong narratives and charismatic leaders are not enough if coalition-building remains tied too closely to a single dominant bloc.
For the Samajwadi Party, the Bihar verdict is less an indictment and more a reminder of what lies ahead. Akhilesh Yadav has actually done a very good job so far; modernising the party's image, expanding alliances beyond the Yadav-Muslim core, and crucially, having a term of visible development to point to.
The roads, expressways and metro infrastructure he built give him a credibility that allows him to speak from the front foot in interviews, especially to younger, aspirational voters.
The challenge now is whether he can deepen and institutionalise this expansion; embedding non-Yadav OBCs, EBCs and Dalits into leadership, broadening ticket distribution, and strengthening organisational structures at the booth and block level incrementally.
The lesson from Bihar is that strong narratives need to be accompanied by a social coalition that is wide, stable and continually renewed.
For the TMC, the lesson is more spatial than social. The BJP's Bihar strategy showed a willingness to bend itself to local common sense, mixing caste arithmetic, welfare narratives and regional alliances.
If it can deploy even a portion of that adaptability in West Bengal, the TMC will face its own geographic constraints. Its strength lies heavily in South and Central Bengal. The real test is North Bengal, where the BJP's social and non-electoral allies, religious organisations, caste networks and social welfare groups, made substantial inroads even before the 2021 election.
The question for the TMC is not whether it can hold its bastions, but whether it can expand effectively into regions where the BJP already possesses a good ecosystem.
Regional parties remain formidable, but Bihar's verdict underscores that historical strongholds, charismatic leadership and reliance on one primary bloc are no longer enough in a political environment where the BJP can adapt itself to local political grammars with tactical flexibility.
With just one more seat than AIMIM, is the Congress a spent force -- at least in state elections? In states like Haryana, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, where it ruled till recently, is it going to be increasingly difficult for it to return to power, particularly in these states?
In Bihar, the Congress has ceased to function as an independent pole of politics. But this must also be understood in context: Bihar is not a state where the Congress has been a major actor for nearly two decades.
Its weak showing reflects not only organisational decay and the absence of a recognisable local leadership, but the long-term reality that the party has operated entirely under the RJD's canopy, with no distinct social base of its own.
In contrast, in states where the Congress has been in power, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, its situation is less dire but structurally similar.
The BJP's rise in these states is not simply the outcome of better messaging or larger funding. It is grounded in a dense, multi-layered organisational ecosystem: not just Panna Pramukhs anymore, but networks of Booth Palaks, Booth Sahayojaks, page committees, and hyper-local WhatsApp clusters embedded in caste associations, temple committees, SHGs, professional guilds and welfare-beneficiary networks.
This deep infrastructure allows the BJP to maintain year-round presence, narrative discipline and targeted mobilisation.
The Congress, by contrast, oscillates between bursts of centralised campaigning and long stretches of drift. It still lacks durable booth-level structures; it has not invested consistently in panchayat networks, caste associations, student unions or local civic bodies; and it has not nurtured a strong second-line leadership in many states.
As a result, even when it wins, it struggles to stabilise or expand its gains.
So, the Congress is not a 'spent force' everywhere, but the Bihar verdict shows where its trajectory leads if left unchecked: a party that remains electorally present in name but is structurally hollow, competing against a BJP whose booth-level machinery is dense, adaptive and embedded in everyday social networks.
If the party wants to arrest this slide, it will need structural renewal; federalisation within the organisation, decentralised decision-making, investment in state-level leaders, and a revival of everyday political work. Otherwise, Bihar will not remain an exception; it will become a preview.
In power in just three states -- and a miserable performance in Bihar where it contested 61 seats -- what is the future of the Congress party? Is this going to lead to desertions? A challenge to the leadership?
The immediate fallout is likely to be internal demoralisation rather than an open revolt. Many existing Congress leaders still see no viable national home outside the party, which dampens the prospect of a dramatic split.
But quieter forms of exit are likely to intensify, leaders that are electorally or socially viable aligning informally with ruling parties, drifting to the BJP in smaller batches, and/or the unviable ones withdrawing into private life when prospects seem bleak.
The deeper issue is the party's internal model. A centralised, high-command-driven structure may work when a party is ascending; it becomes a liability when that party is shrinking.
The Bihar verdict strengthens the argument for a more federal Congress, one in which state units and chief ministerial contenders have the autonomy to build alliances, select candidates, and shape strategies suited to their own terrains.
Rahul Gandhi can continue to serve as the party's chief mobiliser and mass engager, and the family can continue to act as the glue that holds the organisation's disparate factions together. But mobilisation from the top must be matched by credible leadership from below.
Alliance-building, candidate selection, and everday public engagement require figures who are accessible, welcoming, and firmly rooted on the ground. Without such a cadre, even the most impressive mass-mobilisation efforts remain disconnected from electoral returns.
Challenges to the current leadership are therefore more likely to come as pressure for organisational reform rather than as attempts to unseat Rahul Gandhi or the family.
Whether that pressure results in genuine renewal or simply accelerates quiet desertions will shape the Congress's future far more than any single election verdict.
What challenges does it hold for the INDIA bloc?
Bihar underlines the core contradiction of the INDIA alliance: it is an alliance of necessity facing a structurally tilted playing field, but it behaves as though the old, 'normal' democracy still exists.
The BJP has a lead in finance, media, institutional access, and now the electoral infrastructure itself through processes like Special Intensive Revision. Against that, INDIA cannot afford conventional methods.
This verdict exposes three specific challenges.
First, seat-sharing: If the Congress insists on punching above its organisational weight, it drags down alliances in states like Bihar.
Second, division of labour: Yatras and joint rallies create visibility, but without a shared plan for booth-level monitoring, welfare messaging, and protecting voter rolls, they don't translate into votes.
Third, narrative coherence: Regional parties speak strongly about federalism and welfare, but there is no consistent, joint story about what an INDIA government would actually do differently.
If Bihar becomes just another post-mortem rather than the trigger for rethinking alliance practice, data sharing, cadre training on SIR, coordinated welfare narratives, INDIA will remain more a branding exercise than a competitive alternative.
It was a poor show by Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj -- yet the party came third in 50 seats and seems to have decided the winner/loser in at least 12 seats. Why did PK's fresh politics not appeal to especially young Biharis?
Jan Suraaj's performance reveals both potential and limitation. It clearly tapped into some discontent, which is why it finished third in so many seats and affected margins in a clutch of constituencies.
But 'fresh politics' alone could not overcome two structural hurdles.
First, Bihar remains a place where politics is intensely relational. Voters look for evidence of sustained presence, who attends funerals, fixes local problems, negotiates with the administration, rather than for data-rich manifestos or sophisticated branding.
Jan Suraaj was high on surveys, yatras and messaging, but relatively thin on embedded local leadership. Young voters, especially in semi-urban areas, still depend heavily on these local intermediaries when they make tactical choices.
Second, in a first-past-the-post system, many voters wary of the NDA chose not to 'waste' their vote on a formation they saw as untested, even if they liked some of its critique. The party ended up as a repository of protest more than as a credible alternative government. Without visible, winnable clusters, it struggled to convert youth curiosity into actual seats.
What is the JSP's future?
Jan Suraaj now faces a classic fork in the road. It can either double down on building a real political organisation, recruiting local notables, investing in ward- and panchayat-level structures, and nurturing a second line of leadership, or it can slide into becoming a pressure group that shapes discourse but rarely wins seats.
Its 2025 performance does give it a base to build from: pockets where finishing third can, with sustained work, be converted into competitive second place and eventually into victories.
But that requires patience and a willingness (which he says he has) to do the unglamorous, everyday politics that Bihar's older parties have practiced for decades.
The worst outcome would be a relapse into consultancy politics, treating Jan Suraaj as a bargaining platform rather than a long-term project. The best-case scenario is far more interesting.
With steady organisational expansion, the party could become a credible third force, or even the second force in a post-Nitish landscape, a possibility analysts have discussed for nearly ten years, even if that transition keeps getting deferred.
For that to happen, Jan Suraaj must move beyond yatras and data-driven critique and cultivate a rooted cadre that speaks to the aspirations of younger, semi-urban voters, citizens fatigued with both Delhi-centric spectacle and old-style patronage, yet still seeking stability, delivery and everyday accessibility.
If PK can embed his project in that social stratum, the party can move from being a pressure group to a durable player in Bihar's evolving political field.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
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