A few months ago, the Resident Idiot had bestowed fulsome praise on Lalu the politician, hoping his polemic would halt Lalu’s collapse. Now that he has lost, Bidwai vents in vain.

And as usual, utters lies, half-truths, contrivances, and plain malicious words. Because it has become a chore to dissect his every article, I’ve just excerpted some representatives of the said deception.

…the JD-U’s sweep has come on a remarkably low voter turnout — 46 per cent, or 17 percentage-points less than the past 15 years’ average. Usually, such sweeps occur with high turnouts. The low turnout is partly the result of overzealous Election Commission officials like K J Rao, who seem to have had a dampening effect on OBC (other backward caste), Dalit and Muslim voters. This is no cause for celebration. [...] In retrospect, the United Progressive Alliance made a big mistake in not giving Nitish Kumar a chance to form a government in February. It’s not clear that he could have gathered the necessary numbers — even after splitting half of the LJP’s 29 MLAs by dubious means. But fairness demanded that he not be precluded. [...] Contrary to conventional wisdom, the RJD has never depended upon the Muslim-Yadav vote alone. It was always a broad coalition of the poor, and would attract sizable Dalit and MBC (most backward classes) votes. [...] What triumphed was the very same politics that Lalu represents: of ’social justice’, under another leader. Nitish is as deeply rooted in the ’self-respect’ politics of the subaltern classes as any other successful politician of the Gangetic plains, which are in the grip of the dual phenomena of OBC self-assertion and Dalit self-empowerment. The Bihar result will disappoint all those who loathed Lalu precisely because he represented ‘populist’ politics and barely hid his contempt for elitist, rightwing, neo-liberal ideas. [.] Nitish has a purely expedient relationship with the BJP. He is not communal and recently made overtures to secular parties, although he was silent on the 2002 Gujarat riots. [...] The results are a setback for the UPA, although not a grave one. Its national-level stability isn’t in danger so long as the Left backs it — as it will probably do after the reconciliation of its differences over Iran.