Here is how the media would like you to read the Bihar outcome — as a sign of the shape of things to come. This astounding victory is not just a state verdict but a resumption of the BJP’s nation-wide juggernaut. And here is the flipside of the same narrative — elections are pointless. Bihar proves that you cannot take on this authoritarian regime by participating in and legitimising fraudulent elections.

Both these readings have a grain of truth. And a sackful of myth. Both of these are based on a telescopic view of the political reality of this election, a limited and limiting understanding of the horizon of political possibilities and a dim view of the people.

The idea that the Bihar verdict is somehow a turning point in the post-2024 political trajectory is based on three assumptions — that it is unexpected, that it breaks the trend line and that it is representative. All these are questionable.

First of all, the political trajectory of Bihar does not represent the rest of the “Hindi heartland”, let alone the rest of India. The only state in the northern region where the BJP is forced to align with an equal partner, the trends and patterns in Bihar do not find an echo even in the neighbouring Jharkhand, far from flowing into Bengal. Second, the outcome in Bihar was not a reversal of the result in the Lok Sabha polls last year. The NDA had continued its dominance in the state, with a comfortable lead in 174 assembly segments and a vote share lead of 8 percentage points over the........

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