Arun Jaitley's Assessment Of Why BJP Was Crushed In Bihar

• BJP leaders who made comments that "deflected from our main theme of development" contributed to the party's humiliating defeat in Bihar, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said to NDTV today.

• Complaints have also been mounting about his failure to nail down major reforms to boost investment and help create jobs for tens of millions of young people.Galvanised opposition parties are now expected to step up efforts to derail his government's plans to push promised economic reforms through Parliament.

• Among them is the national Goods and Services Tax or GST, which aims at combining the country into a unified marketplace by removing multiple levies.The GST was passed by the lower house or Lok Sabha, where the government is in a massive majority, but it was stalled by the opposition in the Upper House or Rajya Sabha, where the opposition is dominant.

• The stock exchange fell as much as 2.3 per cent in Monday's morning session on the BJP's defeat before recovering some losses.Mr Modi turned the month-long Bihar election into a test of his popularity, fronting some 30 rallies during the campaign and promising thousands of crores in financial schemes and investment for one of the country's most impoverished states.

• I don't think it was a mistake at all " for the Prime Minister to be the face of the campaign, said Mr Jaitley, rebutting those who said the BJP turned the Bihar contest into a prestige battle that has severely dented the PM.

Here are some other news items:^{credits to u-sr33}

• Not Bhagwat’s remark, alliance arithmetic trumped our chemistry: BJP analysis

• Here's Why BJP Thinks It Lost The Bihar Elections

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