Bihar Elections: Is BJP Top Leadership Plotting to Replace Nitish After Polls?

Patna: There has been no change in the past one year in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) top leadership’s stand not to declare incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) chief ministerial face in next month’s Bihar Assembly elections.

Amid speculation over the likely sidelining of Nitish Kumar after elections, senior BJP leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday reportedly made it clear that Nitish Kumar would not be projected as NDA’s chief ministerial candidate and the elected legislators would decide who would head the new government. 

Although Shah, who in Bihar to address election rallies on Friday and Saturday, also said that at present NDA was contesting polls under the leadership of Nitish Kumar and that not only BJP but people of Bihar had “full faith” in him.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah have repeatedly said that NDA would go to polls under Nitish Kumar leadership. Both understand the value of Nitish’s face despite his reported deteriorating mental health and drastic fall popularity, as revealed in some pre-poll surveys in the past nine months. 

However, Shah's statement on Friday has come at a time when political gossip has reached a crescendo over rising suspense over NDA’s chief ministerial face.

Though things are not clear yet, Shah’s statement that elected legislators will decide the next Chief Minister is being seen as official now.

Incidentally, last year, it was Shah who first raised this issue, saying there was no decision yet on the NDA's chief ministerial face in the Bihar Assembly elections. Since then, Modi and Shah have stuck to this stand.

Meanwhile, Shah's widely reported statement: “We will sit together and decide” has not gone down well in Janata Dal (United) circles. Most senior JD-U leaders have underlined that Nitish Kumar, who is also party president, would be continue to be the Chief Minister.

A political observer here said since early this year, the top BJP leadership seemed hesitant to declare Nitish Kumar as NDA’s chief ministerial candidate, but also realised that his face was a must for the saffron party to win this crucial challenge.

Just two days ago, Nishant Kumar, Nitish Kumar's son, again appealed to people to vote for NDA to make his father the Chief Minister again in 2025.

All eyes are now on JD-U whose leaders are likely to respond to Shah’s statement during the election campaign. 

According to political analysts, BJP is not in a position to take any risk of going to polls under the leadership of its own leaders. “BJP in Bihar lacks a leader who enjoys state-wide stature and is a face to take on the Opposition. The party has no option but to depend on Nitish Kumar to woo voters,” said an observer. 

The JD-U, a major long-time ally of BJP, has a strong support base among non-Yadav’s OBCs (Other Backward Classes), EBCs (Extremely Backward Classes) and Dalits. “BJP was defeated in the 2015 state polls when it contested minus Kumar who had shifted sides to Rashtriya Janata Dal,” noted another analyst.

Several political watchers here feel that Nitish Kumar has earned the strong loyalty of EBCs, who constitute around 36.1% of the state's population, Dalits who are 19.65% and, above all, women -- half the state’s population – because of several schemes that benefited them. The cash benefit of Rs 10,000 to 2.77 crore women is being seen as the “mother of all freebies” in the state. So far, 1.21 crore women have received this cash benefit in their bank accounts.

This is one of the main factors being cited as a key reason for JD-U getting a vote share of 15-25% consistently in the state's politics despite Nitish Kumar changing sides in the past two decades.

The JD-U secured a 16.8% vote share in the 2015 Bihar Assembly polls when it contested along with RJD, without BJP. The party's vote percentage rose to 21.81% in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when it contested with BJP. But its vote share dropped to 15.39% in the 2020 Bihar Assembly polls and again rose to 18.52% in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

In April this year, BJP was forced to clarify that NDA would contest polls under Kumar’s leadership after BJP leader and Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini claimed that his party would go to polls in Bihar under the leadership of Samrat Choudhary and would “win the polls.”

Leaders of BJP, which is the largest single party in the Assembly today, are hopeful of improving in the upcoming polls and said they would decide the CM’s face later. The party is aiming to play ‘big brother’ and is keen to replace Kumar with its own leader as Chief Minister, a senior BJP leader said, requesting anonymity.

Several sources within the BJP in Patna also said  that the party would like to form a government in Bihar on its own. “BJP is no longer ready to play second fiddle in Bihar. Our party has formed governments on its own in all neighbouring states, except West Bengal. Now it is Bihar’s turn,” a party leader told this reporter.

It is a different matter that JD-U has been asserting that there would be no compromise on Kumar as NDA's chief ministerial face in the 2025 Assembly elections.
 
There is no denying that Nitish Kumar remains a factor in Bihar politics for his clean image. Though his own caste, Kurmi (powerful OBC) constitutes only 3% of the state’s total population, he enjoys support from other social groups. Whereas BJP lacks any leader of his stature. So, it is a political compulsion for BJP to keep Nitish with it to get support from those who will never vote for it.

But BJP seems to have played a big game this time, as for the first time JD-U and BJP are contesting an equal number of 101 seats. Never before has this happened, as JD-U has always contested more seats than BJP in the past 20 years.

A senior JD-U leader said Nitish Kumar wanted his party to contest not less than 120 of the 243 seats in the 2025 Assembly polls, and the remaining 133 seats to be divided among BJP and its other allies. But this has not materialised.

According to NDA’s seat sharing arrangements, BJP and JD-U will contest 101 seats each, LJP(R) of Union Minister Chirag Paswan will contest 29 seats and HAM of Union Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and RLM of former Union Minister Upender Kushwaha will contest six seats each.

In the 2020 Assembly polls, the JD-U's tally had come down to 43 and the BJP won 74 seats. Keeping this “bad” performance of the party in mind, which had weakened the position of Nitish Kumar in NDA, the party is gearing up to record a better performance this time.

However, the dominant view on the streets, at tea stalls, markets and residential localities in Patna is that Kumar could face anti-incumbency for being a long-serving Chief Minister.