After settling issues with its grand coalition allies and forming its own government in Maharashtra, the BJP is focusing on enhancing coordination among its NDA partners in Bihar, which is slated for assembly elections in October-November 2025.
NDA constituents in Bihar have made it clear that Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar will again lead the alliance in the upcoming assembly elections, dismissing speculation that the ruling alliance might reconsider the matter.
The buzz was round given Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s comments in a recent interview on a new channel, when in the face of the NDA leadership for the 2025 Bihar elections, he said, “We will sit together and take a decision.”
Bihar BJP president Dilip Jaiswal said, “Amit Shah was trying to underline that the parliamentary board is the party’s ‘karkarta’ (activist) who takes big decisions”.
Jaiswal then asserted that “Nitish Kumar will continue to lead the NDA in Bihar till the 2025 elections. There are no two ways about it.”
To reinforce this point, the NDA also announced an elaborate joint campaign led by Nitish across the state. According to this plan, Nitish will address the joint NDA meetings in every district of the state starting with the meeting at Bagaha in West Champaran on January 15. He will then proceed to East Champaran, Sitamarhi, Sheohar and Muzaffarpur, and conclude. Meeting in Vaishali on January 22 for the first phase of this campaign.
Besides the BJP and JD(U), the Bihar NDA includes Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) and Chirag Paswan’s LJP (RV).
In Maharashtra, the Mahayuti went into the recent elections under the leadership of then CM and Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde, but after its victory, the BJP and the Sena were embroiled in a power struggle over the chief ministership that eventually went to BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis.
As in Bihar, the BJP is the senior partner in the ruling coalition in Maharashtra. However, NDA leaders in Bihar pointed out that the state’s case is “different”.
“The BJP knows that Nitish is indispensable to the NDA. It will not attempt any bravery before the elections,” said a JD(U) leader.
Echoing this point, a state BJP leader said that Jaiswal had to “almost disavow” Shah’s comments (on the NDA leadership for the 2025 elections) within 24 hours. “Nitish will dominate state politics for some time. BJP can quietly wait for him to walk off into the sunset,” the leader said.
Nitish’s leadership got a big boost after LJP (RV) state president Raju Tiwari also backed him to lead the alliance in the assembly elections. “There is complete clarity about Nitish leading us in the coming elections. Jaiswal has already cleared the air,” he said, even as HAM(S) echoed his views.
Despite earning the nickname “Paltu Ram” due to his frequent flip-flops, Nitish has managed to carve out a place for himself in state politics since 2000, when the BJP offered the post to Ram Vilas Paswan, who called Nitish even more so. “Senior” leader. It later nominated Nitish (along with the then Samata Party) to lead its flagship Sushil Kumar Modi to lead the state.
The move angered senior BJP leader Kailashpati Mishra, who took a break to register his protest against the party’s decision and predicted that the party would not come out of Nitish’s shadow in future.
His first stint as CM lasted only a week but catapulted him as a great leader of the state, a tag he retains till date.
However, this is not the first time that the BJP has tried to adopt its “twin track politics” against Nitish. In the February 2005 assembly elections – which threw up a fragmented mandate – as well as in the October 2005 elections, the NDA did not field a face but experienced a poor performance in the first phase of the four-phase elections, former Union Minister Arun Jaitley. Asked top BJP leaders to present Nitish as the face of NDA.
Jaitley also gave BJP’s potential CM face Sushil Modi to announce Nitish as the leader of the alliance.
The move paid off and the NDA crossed 130 points in the 243-member House and JD(U) emerged as the senior partner. Nitish firmly held the Chief Minister’s chair as his own while Modi remained as the Vice President. Five years later, NDA won the elections as NDA won 206 seats and JDU won 115 seats while BJP won 91 seats.
In 2013, Nitish jumped ship and contested the 2015 elections as part of a grand alliance with RJD and Congress. The alliance won 178 seats and despite Nitish being the chief minister, the JD(U) emerged as the second largest party after the RJD.
Nitish left the grand alliance in 2017 and led the NDA in the 2020 elections, when the BJP emerged as a major player with 74 seats compared to JD(U)’s 43. However, Nitish became the CM again, even in his form. The party’s numbers were less than BJP’s.
In 2022, Nitish left the NDA again, but the BJP reportedly kept his “options open”, although Shah publicly claimed that the NDA’s doors were closed to him. The BJP also went on to project its Kushwaha leader Samrat Chaudhary to oppose Nitish. After Nitish returned to the NDA in January this year, Chaudhary, who is now the deputy chief minister, was forced to accept him as the NDA leader.
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