The seat-sharing arrangement among the NDA partners for the Bihar elections and the discontent it has triggered underscores the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duopoly’s bid to marginalise chief minister Nitish Kumar’s JDU and other Mandal-based allies to dominate the state’s politics.
The JDU on Wednesday announced its first list of 57 candidates after an intense tussle with the BJP leadership to reclaim at least five of its traditional constituencies that had been allotted to Chirag Paswan’s LJP(RV). The JDU fancies its chances in these five seats, and the move to hand them to Chirag had been seen as an attempt to whittle down the numbers of Nitish’s party.
The rejig, however, does not change the total number of seats each party is contesting.
JDU leaders said they had managed to somewhat resist the BJP’s attempts to shrink its footprint but warned that the larger threat remained.
Until the last Assembly elections, the BJP had played second fiddle to the JDU. This time, however, it dictated terms in the seat-distribution talks, buoyed in no mean measure by its 2020 performance.
The BJP had won 74 seats and the JDU 43, a result that owed a large extent to Chirag’s party entering the fray as an Independent entity and cutting into the JDU’s votes.
With Nitish in the twilight of his political career, the Modi-Shah-led BJP appears to have seized the moment in Bihar, dominated traditionally by Mandal politics.
The fragmentation of Bihar’s Mandal bloc into smaller caste-based outfits has only helped the BJP’s game plan. With Nitish weakened and other Mandal leaders divided, the saffron party has found greater room for manoeuvre. The challenger bloc led by RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad has also been hit by corruption charges against its leaders.
This is the first time the BJP and the JDU will contest an equal number of seats — 101. What has rankled the NDA’s smaller allies is the allotment of 29 seats to Chirag, which they feel is an outsized share. Several of these constituencies have traditionally been represented by the JDU.
“Chirag Paswan was responsible for our worst-ever performance in Bihar, in the last Assembly polls. Now, the BJP leadership seems to be rewarding him with 29 seats,” a senior JDU leader said. In 2020, Chirag had proclaimed himself to be “Narendra Modi’s Hanuman” and fielded candidates mainly against the JDU.
The generous allotment to Chirag this time has sparked unease within the JDU, which fears the BJP could use the LJP leader after the polls to undercut Nitish’s influence. “After the elections, the BJP might use Chirag to pressure us. If the BJP and the LJP together win a significant number of seats, they could dictate terms during government formation,” a JDU leader said.
Two smaller NDA constituents — Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM and Upendra Kushwaha’s RLM — have been allotted only six seats each. Both leaders have voiced their displeasure against the backdrop of the meaty allocation to Chirag but have not dared to challenge the BJP’s authority.
Manjhi expressed solidarity with Nitish, saying his “anger was justified”, while hinting that he too had been shortchanged. Kushwaha is fuming at the allotment of the Mahua seat to the LJP after being promised that his party would get it.
“This time, nothing is well within the NDA. There needs to be some rethinking,” Kushwaha told reporters in Patna on Tuesday after meeting deputy chief minister Samrat Chaudhary to lodge his protest.
By Wednesday morning, the RLM chief had flown to Delhi with BJP leader and Union minister Nityanand Rai to meet home minister Amit Shah. “I had said there were issues within the alliance that needed to be resolved. I have discussed them with Amit Shahji. We hope there will be no further difficulties,” Kushwaha told reporters.
Sources said Kushwaha had to relent after Shah promised to compensate him in the future.
Tejashwi nomination
RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday filed his nomination from Raghopur, of which he is the sitting MLA, even as a seat-sharing deal eluded the Mahagathbandhan partners.
RJD leader and Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly Tejashwi Yadav files nomination from Raghopur constituency for the upcoming state Assembly elections, in Hajipur, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025.
No leader from the RJD’s allies was present, indicating the strain in the Opposition bloc.