Rajdeep Sardesai
“Bihar ki majboori hai, Nitish Kumar zaroori hai..”
(It is the compulsion of Bihar that Nitish Kumar is needed)
Ironically, I first heard that catchy slogan outside the BJP office in 2017 when Nitish Kumar decided to switch sides for the umpteenth time, dump the Yadav first family, rejoin a Narendra Modi-led BJP and stay on as Bihar chief minister. The return wasn’t driven by any sudden rediscovery of friendship but purely by political convenience. Eight years later, little has changed. The BJP has no special love for Nitish babu – someone who was amongst the first to challenge Modi’s prime ministerial credentials in 2013 — but they don’t have any option but to stick to him as the NDA’s leadership face. A visibly ageing and unwell Nitish too has little choice but to quietly accept his subordinate role in the Modi-centric Dilli durbar.
In a sense, 2025 in Bihar is witnessing a Shakespearean-style tragedy playing out in front of a mass audience still unable to shake off a 35-year-old fraught Mandalised legacy of backward caste assertion at the ballot box. This election could well be the last act of a long-running drama; The Brothers Bihari are chalk and cheese. Lalu Prasad, the original charismatic populist, is now physically too weak to even campaign and has ceded authority to his son Tejaswi, an energetic presence but lacking his father’s authentic rustic touch. Nitish, perhaps the most refined product of the 1970s Jayprakash Narayan-led socialist student agitation, is also ailing, in his case suffering from a serious illness that debilitates the mind more than the body. The BJP has Modi as its unquestioned helmsman but the party doesn’t have a local leadership of stature or pan-Bihar appeal. While a moth-eaten Congress is organizationally comatose and in no position to revive itself overnight. And then there is Prashant Kishore, a youthful anti-establishment debutante-challenger but still searching for more space in a complex caste matrix.
Which brings one back to the original slogan on why Nitish Kumar, having been sworn in a record nine times and in line for an Olympic gold in political gymnastics, is still seen as a necessity despite his obvious limitations. Five years ago, the BJP attempted to cut Nitish down to size by propping up a gen-next Bihari politician in Chirag Paswan to consciously target the Janata Dal (United) vote. The strategy worked. Well, almost. A beleaguered JD (U) won just 43 seats while the BJP was well ahead with 74 seats. The balance of power between the two allies had shifted dramatically and yet the BJP hesitated to replace Nitish as chief minister with their own nominee. An artful survivor, Nitish saw through the BJP power game: in 2022, fearing that the BJP might break his weakened party like it did with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, Nitish switched sides to become the key driver of the opposition-led INDIA alliance. When he realised that the INDIA grouping wouldn’t fuel his national ambitions, he chose to return to the NDA fold on the eve of the 2024 general elections. The leader who once claimed to represent morality in public life was now a despairing survivor, the politics of compromise replacing ideological conviction.
Once the proud charioteer of a ‘naya’ Bihar, Nitish is now a mask, trapped in a ‘chakravyuha’ by a domineering BJP. And yet, while in many other states the BJP has managed to dictate terms to subservient allies, the party cannot, at least in public, be seen to be humiliating the long-serving chief minister in any manner. Firstly, unlike in other Hindi heartland states, the BJP hasn’t built a credible backward caste leadership of its own. The shadow of upper caste supremacy from a previous era still looms over the BJP’s core in Bihar. On the one occasion when the BJP did fight an election on its own in Bihar in 2015, at the peak of the Modi wave, it wasn’t able to resist the combined onslaught of the Lalu-Nitish caste duopoly. Secondly, the BJP’s electoral reverses in the 2024 general elections has meant that the party has embraced a more flexible coalition dharma, one where every ally needs to be accommodated. In the circumstances, the BJP can ill-afford to jettison a Nitish at this stage with the next big national battle in 2029 still some distance away.
Finally, the BJP realises that even a downsized Nitish Kumar still commands a solid double-digit vote share.
In almost every election since 2005, two key groups have generally backed Nitish Kumar: women and extremely backward castes. With caste loyalties mostly unshaken, the Mahila or woman vote becomes a potential game-changer.
Post-script: I remember interviewing Nitish Kumar when he chose to relinquish the chief minister’s chair briefly in 2013 to protest Modi’s elevation as the BJP prime ministerial choice. “I joined a Vajpayee-Advani-led BJP, not one that will be led by a communal dictator,” he raged then. When I now see the same Nitish Kumar genuflecting before Mr Modi, I realise how nothing is permanent in politics. As interests and alliances shift, so does character and conscience.
The writer is author and senior journalist