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Bihar Elections 2015: Will Narendra Modi and Amit Shah's risky gamble pay off?

In the entire election campaign, which has spanned well over a month, each political party has tried different strategies to corner their opposition and drive home the agenda.

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Amit Shah and Narendra Modi
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With a day to go for the campaign to finally end in Bihar, all political parties are in overdrive to drive home their points and to persuade the still undecided voters.  In the entire election campaign, which has spanned well over a month, each political party has tried different strategies to corner their opposition and drive home the  agenda. From Modi's 'generous' Rs1.25 lakh crore grant for Bihar to Nitish Kumar attacking PM's DNA comment, the campaign has witnessed many jibes and counter-jibes, hilarity, sarcasm and low-blows in equal measure. The NDA was taken aback with a horrible self -goal when RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat made the controversial statement that reservation policy needs to be re-looked. This did put BJP's campaign in astray temporarily in a state which still heavily votes based on caste.  

BJP's great plan of a non-Yadav OBC and EBC consolidation was hurt by Bhagwat's comments with party leaders repeatedly trying to blunt opposition's allegation that  Bhagwat has revealed BJP's actual game-plan. But mid-way through the elections, BJP-led by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah decided to change the narrative.

Suddenly, Narendra Modi started attacking the Mahagatbandhan claiming that they have advocated for religion-based reservation in the past. He also asserted that no political party in the country had the power to "take away and undo" reservation guaranteed to the weaker sections in the Constitution by B R Ambedkar. The communal undertone of Modi's speech is hard to miss and Amit Shah made it obvious when he said that firecrackers will go off in Pakistan if BJP fails to win in Bihar. The strategy is obvious, an effort to unite the caste-torn Hindus to vote en-masse for BJP, especially to counter the obvious Muslim polarisation in the 5th stage, which even Amit Shah believes is a tricky phase for the saffron party. 

The third and the fourth phase of the elections were undoubtedly the litmus test for BJP, as it is expected that the party will do well in those constituencies. But whether the party will do enough to offset the perceived loss for the first two phases is something we will get to know on November 8. With Modi cracking up the rhetoric over reservations, it is obvious that the saffron party is looking for the last push to cross over the line. PM Modi and his team must be aware that his comments about reservations are not very becoming of a man who holds such a high position, but it is a calculating gamble the party has taken keeping in mind the high stakes involved with this election. If BJP finally manages to pull off a victory in Bihar, the credit obviously will go to PM Modi and treading such a dangerous line in matter of reservation will pay off for them. Else this issue will be added to the long laundry list of grouses intellectuals and liberal media have against PM Modi. 

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