Bihar Elections: Is the Agenda for Bengal Elections Already Set?

With a focus on Bihar, where assembly elections are scheduled this year, major political parties are holding rallies. Amidst the usual back-and-forth between the opposition and the ruling parties, the issues dominating the discourse and the political clashes in the Bihar assembly elections are distinct this time. Discussions on caste equations are less prominent, and there’s less talk about the backward, forward, Dalit, and Maha-Dalit communities. While the opposition raises issues such as election commission irregularities, Special Electoral Roll Revision (SIR), and state development, the BJP counters by highlighting the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration, targeting Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav. Although the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration and questions about the Election Commission were rarely raised in previous Bihar elections, these are now central to the current election. These same topics were previously raised by Mamata Banerjee when she was in the opposition in West Bengal. It appears that the agenda for the Bengal elections has been set in the Bihar elections, even before they occur.