Patna, Nov. 15 -- The Jan Suraaj Party contested 238 of the 243 seats in Bihar. It won none. And it polled just 2-3% of the popular vote (according to theparty's preliminary estimates. Election Commission data is yet to come). Effectively, it wasn't a winner, loser, even spoiler (as some optimistic analysts expected it to be) -- but a literal non-player. It did do better than None of The Above (NOTA), though, which polled 1.8% of the votes.

Bihar state JSP president Manoj Bharti admitted that the results were shocking not as much in terms of seats as in terms of the vote percentage.

"We came to usher in change in Bihar, but we could not convince them the way it was required. The ruling dispensation also gave so many sops and used Jeevik...