Patna,(BiharTimes): Two of the five places––minus Patna––which prime minister Narendra Modi visited in 37 days fall in the belt where NDA performed badly and where it is still facing a very tough challenge.
Rallies at Saharsa and Bhagalpur were organized to revive the poll prospect of the BJP and its allies in Kosi, Seemanchal and Bhagalpur regions of the state.

Eight of the nine seats lost by the NDA in the last Lok Sabha election fall in this belt. Except in Seemanchal, the two other regions do not have minority concentration.

The NDA lost Madhepura, Supaul, Katihar, Kishanganj, Purnea, Bhagalpur, Banka, Araria and Nalanda parliamentary seats to the UPA. Save Nalanda all of them fall in east and north-eastern parts of the state. Five sitting MPs of BJP––from Banka, Bhagalpur, Purnia, Katihar and Araria––lost.

The bad performance continued. In the by-election to Bhagalpur Asssembly seat held in August 2014 the BJP lost the sitthing Bhagalpur seat by a big margin to a Bhumihar Congress candidate. The Congress fought in alliance with JD(U) and RJD.

The by-election loss here came as a shock as Bhagalpur has a sizeable upper castes and trading community votes––the traditional BJP support base. It was the party’s citadel for about four decades and had long been represented by none else but Ashwini Choubey. Bhagalpur has always been a RSS bastion.

So it was natural for Narendra Modi to concentrate his energy on this belt.

Now that the RJD, Congress and JD(U) have joined hands the NDA is facing a big challenge in 66 Assembly seats spread all over the belt. In 2014 election the NDA managed to establish lead in only seven of these 66 segments.

The entire belt has a sizeable Extremely Backward Castes, Yadav, Muslim and Dalit votes.

This is one reason why the BJP is giving so much importance to Pappu Yadav, who earlier this year was expelled from the RJD.

For a brief moment the BJP thought that the visit of Asaduddin Owaisi of the Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen would divide the Muslim vote and polarise the atmosphere. But Owaisi’s trip ended as a flop show forcing him to announce in Deccan Herald that his party would not contest the Bihar Assembly election.

If the BJP wants to win in Bihar it would have to perform much better in the coming Assembly election.