Outside a smoke-stained cigarette kiosk on Patna’s bustling Jamal Road, Ranjan Chowrasia animatedly tries to convince his friend Sujit Kumar that the BJP will install its own chief minister after the elections.
“Just wait and watch. The BJP will surely win more seats than the JDU and claim the mukhyamantri ki gaddi (chief minister’s chair). Nitish Kumar will no longer remain chief minister,” Ranjan insists.
Sujit, a fellow Kurmi youth from Nitish’s home district Nalanda, retorts with conviction. “BJP ki himmat nahi Nitish Kumar ko bahar karde. Bihar mein abhi bahut saal tak backward politics chalega,” he says, referring to the enduring sway of Mandal-era socialist politics. “Abki baar, phir se Nitish Kumar (This time, Nitish Kumar once again),” Sujit adds firmly.
Their exchange captures the prevailing mood of speculation and uncertainty that has come to define Bihar’s election season — particularly after Union home minister and BJP strategist Amit Shah’s recent statement that the next chief minister will be chosen by the newly elected NDA legislators.
Widely read as a signal that Nitish Kumar’s two-decade-long reign might be drawing to a close, Shah’s remark seems to have inadvertently bolstered the JDU leader’s political standing. Even though Shah later sought to soften his stance — suggesting that the NDA could continue with Nitish at the helm — the speculation has refused to
die down.
Once written off as a fading force, Nitish seems to have reasserted his relevance, positioning himself once again at the heart of Bihar’s political discourse this election season. From Patna’s crowded bazaars to its rural hinterland, the voter mood suggests that — despite questions over his health and state of mind — Nitish remains indispensable to the NDA’s electoral calculus.
The derisive epithets of “paltu ram” and “paltu chacha”— referring to Nitish’s frequent political flip-flops — that dominated the 2020 Assembly elections have largely faded. Except among Yadavs and Muslims, who form the RJD’s core support base, few voters invoke those barbs today.
Ironically, the 74-year-old leader himself has brushed aside the farewell he had announced five years ago and is back on the campaign trail, addressing multiple rallies daily, even though he reads out from a written speech. During the 2020 Assembly elections, on the final day of campaigning, he had declared at a rally in Purnea’s Damdaha constituency that it would be his last electoral contest.
“Today is the last day of campaigning, and the election is the day after tomorrow. This is my last election. Ant bhala toh sab bhala (All’s well that ends well),” he had said on November 5, 2020.
The very talk of Nitish being sidelined seems to have galvanised a large section of the non-Yadav backward castes — his most loyal constituency. Despite widespread grievance over joblessness, corruption and the poor quality of education in government schools, many among them remain unwilling to trust an alternative. They credit Nitish with building roads, ensuring relative peace and steering Bihar away from its lawless past.
Across the Ganga in Raghopur — the stronghold of rival Tejashwi Yadav — Harlial Chandravanshi, an extremely backward caste farmer, dismisses speculation about the chief minister’s mental decline as “virodhi ka prachar” (Opposition propaganda). He brushes aside viral clips showing Nitish mistaking Narendra Modi for Atal Bihari Vajpayee or placing a flowerpot on an official’s head.
“Virodhi toh prachar karega na. Nitish ji pura fit hain (The Opposition will, of course, spread such propaganda. Nitish is perfectly fine),” he retorts, drawing frowns from his Yadav co-villagers in Rustampur. The Yadavs here passionately back young Tejashwi as Bihar’s next-generation leader. But Harlial remains adamant: “No government in Bihar can be formed without the JDU.”
Tejashwi, RJD leader and the Opposition Mahagathbandhan’s chief ministerial candidate, also appears to have inadvertently stirred unease among the JDU’s traditional supporters by repeatedly invoking Shah’s remarks to accuse the BJP of plotting to sideline his “chacha (uncle)” Nitish, evoking sympathy for the chief minister. “This is Nitishji’s last election. Amit Shah himself has said he will not be made chief minister again,” the Opposition’s poll mascot has been telling crowds at nearly every rally.
Nitish, who broke away from Lalu Prasad in 1994 to float his own party, has never secured a majority on his own. Yet since riding the anti-RJD wave in 2005 to power, he has ensured that no government in Bihar can be formed without him at the helm.
Initially seen as a leader representing barely 3 per cent of his OBC Kurmi community, Nitish deployed deft social engineering to splinter the broader OBC and Dalit vote banks, building a reliable base of about 12-15 per cent. He has used this core support to switch alliances at will and retain the chief minister’s chair across changing coalitions.
In the 2020 Assembly polls, his JDU was nearly routed, winning only 43 of the 243 seats, while the BJP surged to 74. Yet fearing that Nitish might cross over to the RJD — which emerged as the single-largest party with 75 seats — the BJP agreed to retain him as chief minister. The fears proved justified when, in 2022, Nitish severed ties with the BJP and allied with the RJD, accusing the saffron party of trying to split his organisation. Just ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he made another U-turn, rejoining the NDA and branding the Opposition “hopeless and corrupt”.
In this election, even the BJP’s traditionally loyal upper-caste supporters — long critical of Nitish’s frequent flip-flops — seem reconciled to his continued dominance, at least for a few more years. “There is currently no leader in the Bihar BJP who can match Nitish’s stature. He may be down, but it will be some time before he is out,” says Jugalkishore Singh, a Rajput from Bakhtiarpur in Patna district.