The BJP-led NDA obliterated the Opposition Grand Alliance in Bihar, demolishing the fabled caste-based political equations in the state.

The NDA had won seven and was leading in 32 of the state’s 40 Lok Sabha seats at 8pm on Thursday. The Congress was leading in just one seat, Kishanganj, and Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) was set to score a duck.

The BJP emerged on top in all 17 seats it contested, Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in all six it fought, and chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United (JDU) seemed to slip in only one of the 17 where it battled. The JDU, fighting alone, had only won two seats in 2014.

Many stalwarts bit the dust and proved wrong exit polls, which turned out to be conservative.

Among the prominent RJD figures who were defeated or set to lose were former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (to the LJP’s Veena Devi in Vaishali), Lalu’s eldest daughter Misa Bharti (to the BJP’s Ram Kripal Yadav in Patliputra), Lalu’s eldest son Tej Pratap Yadav’s father-in-law Chandrika Yadav (to the BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy in Saran), Jagadanand Singh (to BJP leader Ashwini Choubey in Buxar), and Abdul Bari Siddiqui (to BJP rookie Gopal Ji Thakur in Darbhanga).

The big names in the Congress to eat humble pie were incumbent Patna Sahib MP Shatrughan Sinha (to the BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad), former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar (to the BJP’s Chhedi Paswan in Sasaram), Supaul’s incumbent MP Ranjeet Ranjan (to the JDU’s Dileshwar Kamat), and Tariq Anwar (to the JDU’s Dulal Chandra Goswami in Katihar).

Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) chief and former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha, who ditched the NDA and contested from Ujiyarpur and Karakat constituencies, lost both — to Bihar BJP president Nityanand Rai and the JDU’s Mahabali Singh, respectively. Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular (HAMS) founder and former Bihar chief minister Jitam Ram Manjhi was trailing against Vijay Kumar of the JDU in Gaya.

JDU dissident Sharad Yadav also lost in Madhepura on an RJD ticket to the JDU’s Dinesh Chandra Yadav. The CPI candidate from Begusarai, former JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, lost by a huge margin — 4,22,217 votes — to the BJP’s Giriraj Singh.

NOTA stood at third position in 13 constituencies in Bihar, showing that there was a rising trend of people not liking any of the contestants.

The Lok Sabha quake is bound to rock the politics of Bihar, which had stemmed the winning spree of the BJP in the 2015 Assembly elections.

JDU secretary-general K.C. Tyagi declared that the poll results not only affirmed that the BJP, JDU and LJP together had a vote share of 55 per cent consisting of the backward castes, Scheduled Castes and upper castes, but also a fair section of Yadavs and Muslims, who constitute around 30 per cent of the electorate.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s wave and chief minister Nitish Kumar’s work have done the miracle in Bihar,” Tyagi said. “The results show that the public is now bored of RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s caste- and family-oriented politics. Analysing our victory and the break-up of results, we see that NDA led at over 220 out of 243 Assembly seats and this is going to have a very positive impact in our favour in the state elections due next year.”

LJP leader and Ram Vilas’s son Chirag Paswan, leading in Jamui, said that there were three factors: Prime Minister Modi’s name, chief minister Nitish’s support and Ram Vilas’s guidance.

“We had seen casteism breaking up in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls too, but this time the people of Bihar rose beyond the lines of caste and religion to vote for us. The verdict is on our work for the people and also negates the thinking that Muslims do not vote for the NDA,” Chirag added.

The results highlighted the failure of Lalu’s younger son Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, who was the pivot of the Opposition Grand Alliance.

“The RJD needs a leadership overhaul,” a senior leader of Lalu’s party said under cover of anonymity. “Tejashwi did not take any suggestion from party’s veteran leaders and ignored them. His consultants were non-political people from Delhi. He did not indulge either in constructive works, or in positive campaigning, and could not take the party above the dependence on MY (Muslim – Yadav) factor for votes. He did not share the dais with Rahul Gandhi in several of his meetings, and even disappeared for around a week in the midst of campaigning on the grounds of being ill. It was a time when the opponents were swallowing pills and campaigning while running high fever.”

Tejashwi said the RJD “will analyse the reasons behind defeat and will strive together to fight bigger battles”.

A clamour for change in leadership can also be expected in the Congress.

“There was a complete lack of coordination among the Grand Alliance constituents,” said Sadanand Singh, Congress legislature party leader in Bihar. “The RJD was taking unilateral decisions. The number of seats on which we contested came down from our demand of 14 to 11 and finally to nine due to this. There is a need to increase our acceptability among the public.”

The results are a mixed bag for Nitish’s JDU; it will breathe in new life but the thumping countrywide victory of the BJP will weaken any chance of Nitish striving to pose a challenge as a secular leader to Modi.