NEW DELHI: Amit Shah's pre-poll boast - "We will win more than 160 seats... It can be 180 also" - sounded-like a typical campaign bravado, the verdict proved otherwise. The NDA did not just meet expectations. It blew past them, finishing at 202 seats. With this sweeping mandate, one storyline stood above all: the BJP emerged as the single largest party in Bihar, securing 89 seats - its highest tally ever in the state assembly.
Legacy deficit
This rise has taken decades to shape. For years, Bihar was defined by the dominance of socialist and Mandal-era forces led by leaders like
Lalu Prasad Yadav and later Nitish Kumar. The BJP, despite expanding nationally, had little organic ground in the state. It lacked historical roots, caste-led influence and a natural voter identity in a state where politics was built more on community loyalties than ideology.
So the party chose patience.
Behind-the scenes build-up
The BJP stayed behind the scenes and allowed Nitish Kumar -- the face of "sushasan babu" -- to remain the mascot of reform and governance. While Nitish held the chair and the credit, the BJP quietly built its booth networks, expanded OBC outreach, infiltrated and weakened RJD's voter base, and steadily infused ideological presence into a state long driven by personality-centric politics revolving around Lalu and Nitish.
BJP's social engineering strategy in Bihar, largely driven under the leadership of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, appears to have paid off -- including in the Muslim-dominated Seemanchal region, where voters did not hesitate to support the BJP-NDA alliance.
The Muslim electorate, traditionally seen as outside BJP's fold and often viewed as a disadvantage for the saffron party, showed a noticeable shift this time.
2025: Outgrowing the dependency narrative
The real inflection came in 2020, when the BJP, for the first time, outscored its senior ally JD(U), winning 74 seats compared to JD(U)'s 43. Yet it still supported Nitish as chief minister, signalling endurance over instant glory.
This election made the transformation official. During seat negotiations, the BJP secured 101 seats, the same as JD(U), positioning itself as an equal partner and ending the long-held narrative of Nitish-led JD(U) as the "big brother." The results confirmed what the groundwork had hinted at: the BJP had outgrown its dependency narrative.
Will Nitish continue as CM?
However, Nitish Kumar also made an impressive comeback -- rising from 43 seats in the previous election to 85 this time, just behind the BJP. Yet his indispensability may not look the same anymore. With its partners, the NDA nearly touches majority on its own: the BJP's 89 seats, LJP (RV)'s 19, HAM's 5 and RLM's 4 total 117 seats, only a few short of the required majority. The remaining gap could potentially be bridged through talks with nine Independent candidates who are not aligned with either camp.
A big question now emerges over who will be projected as the chief ministerial face for the BJP, especially when it comes to placing complete trust in Nitish Kumar - a leader who has built an unmatched reputation for switching sides, often described as practising "weatherproof politics."
Over the past decade, he has moved between alliances with a precision almost unique in Indian politics. He walked out of the BJP in 2013 just as Narendra Modi was rising on the national stage, partnered with the RJD to form a grand alliance, switched back to the BJP, returned to the RJD camp, and then again shifted to the NDA. The pace and timing of these shifts have kept observers guessing for years.
Nitish: The constant switch
It was Nitish who first worked toward bringing opposition parties together under what eventually became the INDIA bloc. But before the idea could fully mature, he stepped away and returned to the NDA. This is why a familiar phrase keeps resurfacing in Bihar's political chatter: "Nitish sabke hain." Today, once again, he stands with the NDA to take on the very bloc he helped shape.
Despite these repeated shifts, the BJP has usually not pressed hard on trust issues with JD(U), largely because Nitish’s "sushasan babu" image has been politically valuable in Bihar. Even after outscoring JD(U) in 2020, the BJP continued to back Nitish as chief minister. But now, with greater strength and momentum, a new question arises: will the BJP once again settle for a secondary role, or assert itself and claim the lead?
When asked who would be chief minister, Amit Shah kept the answer open: "Who am I to decide it? NDA partners will decide who will be the next Bihar CM." Although the NDA publicly supports Nitish Kumar, the BJP has avoided formally projecting him as its chief ministerial face, keeping room for negotiation.
The psychologist shift
Nitish Kumar's political shifts -- from BJP to RJD and back, then back again -- may have generated headlines, but beneath those dramatic alliance flips, the BJP was slowly becoming indispensable to Bihar’s power structure. Nitish remained the face, but BJP became the framework.
The turning point is not just numerical; it is psychological. For decades, Bihar politics revolved around the Lalu-Nitish axis. Today, it revolves around the BJP’s bargaining weight. The Mahagathbandhan’s collapse, especially RJD’s reduction to 25 seats and Congress winning only 6 out of 61 it contested, underlined that shift.
From outsider to power centre
BJP veteran Lal Krishna Advani, who was arrested in Samastipur during his iconic Ram Mandir "Rath Yatra" on the orders of then-chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav -- a moment can be viewed as Bihar unwelcoming of the BJP. Now, the saffron party stands in sharp contrast to the party's present position, where it holds the strongest hand inside the state's ruling coalition. This transformation marks one of the most significant slow-burn political realignments in recent political history.
In the end, Bihar 2025 isn't just about who will be chief minister. It’s about who now shapes the state’s political centre of gravity. And for the first time in three decades, that person may no longer be Nitish Kumar -- but the BJP itself.
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