Bihar: The ally that is stuck in the BJP’s craw

It was a swift volte face. Within hours of declaring that the BJP central leadership would decide the NDA’s chief ministerial face after the state assembly election (due later this year), Dilip Agarwal, president of the state unit of the BJP, saw reason to correct himself — ‘Nitish phir se (again)’ in 2025, he now said.

Few in Bihar were fooled by the U-turn, though. In private conversations, BJP leaders make no secret of their sanguine belief that the party is now close to having its own chief minister in Bihar for the first time. Nitish supporters, they believe, are essentially anti-Lalu Yadav and would happily support the BJP.

“The BJP is close to gobbling up the JD(U),” says RJD leader and former deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav. “it will be in the interest of JD(U) if Nitish’s son Nishant Kumar joins politics.” He does not forget to add, “Nishant hamara bhai hai (is my brother).”

The 48-year-old son, after creating a flutter by seeking support for his father for the first time, is keeping his cards close to his chest. Though he is yet to join the party formally, he is now seen at public functions and does not shy away from facing the camera.

Ministers and MLAs of the JD(U) have no delusions about the party’s marginalisation. Few are certain of a party nomination to contest again. Most of the party’s 45 MLAs are clinging to the hope that the BJP and JD(U) will contest 100 seats each — leaving the remaining 43 to allies like Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party, Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha and others. But the BJP, which has 80 MLAs in the current Vidhan Sabha, is certain to contest more than 100 seats.

State JD(U) leaders have little confidence that Lallan Singh or Sanjay Jha, the party’s two central leaders, can safeguard their interests because both lean towards the BJP. They also sense that it is not in the BJP’s interest to rock the JD(U) before the assembly poll, but they fear it will move in for the kill after the election is in the bag.

Some are openly bitter about the ‘betrayal’ by the BJP. They claim the two parties had an understanding when they came together: the BJP would appeal to the upper castes, which were deserting the Congress to support Lalu Yadav, and lean on its own cadres and RSS volunteers, while Nitish would be left to rally non-Yadav OBCs, Kurmis, Kushwahas and the EBCs. This arrangement was manifest in the list of candidates fielded by the two parties in the 2005 and 2010 assembly elections.

The equations changed in 2015 when Nitish Kumar flipped and joined hands with Lalu Prasad. The NDA won just 58 seats in the assembly in 2015. Since then, the BJP has steadily made inroads into the JD(U)’s OBC and EBC support base.

In 2015, the BJP held a big event to glorify ‘Ashoka the Great’ as a Kushwaha emperor of Magadh. There is no historical evidence to support the claim, but those considerations have not deterred the BJP. In 2022, the BJP sent Shambhu Sharan Patel, a Dhanuk by caste, to the Rajya Sabha. In 2024, it nominated Bhim Singh, a former aide to Nitish from an extremely backward caste, as its Rajya Sabha candidate. The same year, the BJP hosted another event to ‘honour’ the Kushwahas.

In the recent cabinet expansion, the BJP, which had left six of its allotted ministerial positions vacant, chose a Kurmi and a Kushwaha as ministers.

To make matters worse, the Kushwaha minister hails from Nitish’s home district of Nalanda. “Kushwahas, Kurmis and EBCs form our core support base, yet the BJP is courting them in direct violation of the understanding between our two parties,” remarked a JD(U) minister.

Nitish, who earlier would have had no difficulty in wrangling a Rajya Sabha seat from the BJP despite not having the numbers, is now a helpless spectator. Said to be suffering from a neuro-degenerative disease and closely chaperoned in public, Nitish did, however, deliver a spirited speech in the assembly on 4 March.

While no one knows what’s on his mind, his legislators seem resigned to a split, some joining the BJP and others the RJD. “I’m 36 years old. I do not have to resort to jumlas to win… I have a long political life ahead of me and I will do what I say.”

In his speech at the state assembly, Tejashwi Yadav defended his father’s record as chief minister, hit out at the incessant jibes of ‘jungle raj’, mocked NDA leaders like the late Dr Jagannath Mishra (a co-accused in the fodder scam) and his son, a minister. Rattling off the names of a dozen ministers in the state who hail from political families, he said, “And you accuse me of parivarvaad (dynasty politics)?”

While Tejashwi starts off with the advantage of the Muslim–Yadav ‘vote bank’ behind him in this election year, his own MLAs complain that he is not accessible to them the way his father is. Tejashwi appears more at ease with leaders of his own generation, like Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Yadav, and more comfortable interacting with younger media persons. His relations with other OBC ‘leaders’ like Pappu Yadav are frosty at best, and he hasn’t attracted other caste leaders apart from Mukesh Sahni.

His task is further complicated by Chirag Paswan and Prashant Kishor. Paswan, who was outside the NDA in 2020, secured over five per cent of the votes and played a key role in the BJP’s loss of 20–30 seats, according to BJP leaders. Now a Union minister, he hasn’t yet generated the same buzz as before, but there’s no doubt he’ll be part of the NDA.

In 2025, Kishor may take on the role Paswan played in 2020, but both sides are wary of him — and not without reason. Bihar has changed a lot, notes RJD legislator Sarvjeet. Reflecting on the protests and counter-protests following the Mandal Commission report, he observes that neither the caste survey nor debates over reservations stir voters anymore. Talk of ‘social justice’ no longer excites them. There’s no loyalty to politicians, parties, or ideologies, he adds cynically.

Each group, he says, focuses on its own interests, making politics far more transactional. Caste equations and land-holding patterns have also shifted. The 2023 caste survey revealed that 10 per cent of upper castes had migrated out of Bihar, while OBC and Dalit migration was limited to 5 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively.

OBCs, particularly Yadavs and Banias, have become the new land-owning class, dominating EBCs and others. The state government said 3 million migrant workers had returned during the 2020 pandemic, but unofficial estimates suggest over 10 million. Many Biharis in cities like Surat, Kolkata, New Delhi, Mumbai, and in states like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have distanced themselves from their home state.

The changing voter profile is evident in places like Jehanabad, once plagued by massacres and Naxal violence. While violence has stopped for 20–30 years, one-third of houses remain locked, says former BJP MLA Arun Kumar. This trend extends even beyond Naxal areas. “Without events like Chhath, most villages remain deserted,” he adds.

Even those who return to vote have changed, and old slogans no longer resonate. No wonder the state has one of the lowest polling percentages. The BJP has capitalised on declining upper-caste numbers, aggressively courting other castes and the marginalised. How Tejashwi counters this will determine the outcome of what promises to be a fierce electoral battle later this year.