Five reasons why Biharis are not done with Nitish Kumar yet

One of the first people I met on the ground while covering the Assembly elections in Bihar had declared weeks ago that “Mukhyamantri Nitish Kumar hi banenge, baen se ya daen se.” Nitish Kumar will become chief minister again, one way or another.

This person was not a Janata Dal (United) loyalist. In fact, he did not intend to vote for the party’s candidate in his own constituency of Sheohar. What he said about Nitish was based on his assessment of the state’s overall political situation.

Back then, even the Bharatiya Janata Party, the JD(U)’s main ally in Bihar as well as at the Centre, was refusing to project the 74-year-old Nitish Kumar as the alliance’s chief ministerial face.

But Friday’s results have vindicated the Sheohar voter’s assessment and settled the chief minister debate within the National Democratic Alliance. The Janata Dal (United) looks set to emerge as the biggest gainer from the last Assembly elections.

As of 6 pm, the party was leading in 83 out of the state’s 243 seats – nearly double its 2020 tally. Its vote share has gone up from 15.4% to 19%. While the BJP is leading in 90 seats, up from 74 seats in 2020, its vote share has increased by less than one percentage point.

Just like 2020 and 2015 before that, Nitish Kumar remains at the centre of the state’s politics. Here are five reasons why Bihar has once again put him there:

1. Most Biharis still respect Nitish

For a politician who has been chief minister for virtually all of the last 20 years, Nitish Kumar hardly evokes any significant anti-incumbency among the state’s voters. Even those accusing local bureaucrats and MLAs of corruption speak about Nitish reverentially.

Voters credit him for constructing roads, electrifying villages and improving women’s safety. Everywhere I went, Biharis old and young stood up to enact how their vehicles used to undulate on the state’s roads before Nitish first came to power in 2005. “Kaam toh kiye hain,” supporters of the Opposition, too, would begrudgingly admit. He has worked for us.

A series of pre-poll measures targeted at the poorest sections of the population also seem to have helped Nitish tackle disaffection among voters.

Commentators have largely highlighted the Rs 10,000 given to women though several other schemes were rolled out around the same time. These include a new unemployment allowance, 125 units of free electricity for all households, and increased pensions for senior citizens, widows and disabled people.

Much is made of Nitish’s string of flip-flops since 2013, when he broke away from the BJP, his long-term ally, for the first time. But Scroll found that barring vocal Opposition voters, few consider the chief minister a lesser leader for repeatedly switching sides.

His persistence does cause heartburn among BJP supporters, most of whom will prefer someone from the saffron party taking charge of Bihar. The BJP has never had its own chief minister in the state.

However, as one such voter said to me in Sitamarhi, they still vote for JD(U) out of majboori, or helplessness, because voting for the Rashtriya Janata Dal is not an option.

2. Governance vs jungle raj

It is not just hardcore BJP voters who take such a dim view of the principal Opposition party in Bihar. Many other Biharis are unconvinced by Tejashwi Yadav’s efforts to step out of the shadow of his father, former Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Lalu and Rabri Devi, his wife, governed the state from 1990 till 2005. While Rashtriya Janata Dal supporters say the period saw the emancipation of all marginalised communities, several Dalits and backward caste voters complained about Yadav domination.

For such voters, Nitish Kumar symbolises order and the rule of law. It is a reputation the chief minister has cultivated for years by projecting himself as sushasan babu – a man focused on governance.

To be clear, crime and its nexus with politics has not abated in Bihar. If anything, Nitish Kumar’s own party has fielded multiple candidates known for their criminal antecedents. But most voters don’t see the chief minister himself as biased towards any one caste. Meanwhile, the young Tejashwi is still battling the ghosts of a past that he had little to do with in the first place.

3. Nitish’s vote bank is undisturbed

The third major reason why Nitish Kumar endures is that his rivals don’t appear to be vying for the political ground he stands on.

Analysts say that the JD(U) chiefly draws its support from two overlapping social groups: the extremely backward castes and women. In the 2025 Assembly elections, no Opposition outfit made a substantive political play to wrestle the votes of these two constituencies from the JD(U).

The extremely backward castes form a majority of all backward caste groups in Bihar and collectively make up over 36% of the state’s population. With 21, Nitish Kumar’s party put up the highest number of candidates from these communities, as this analysis in Hindustan Times shows. In contrast, the Rashtriya Janata Dal fielded just 13.

The Congress, which released a manifesto addressing the extremely backward castes, also gave the ticket to just four leaders from this group. It is telling that the two main Mahagathbandhan parties together could not match the JD(U) figure despite contesting double its number of seats.

When it comes to women, Scroll found that Nitish Kumar continues to be popular because of policies he has pursued over two decades. Many of them told me that they would have voted for him even without the last-minute scheme promising one woman from each family Rs 10,000 to start a business.

More than bringing new women voters towards the JD(U), the policy seems to have helped in taking the wind out of the Opposition’s sails. The Mahagathbandhan was never quite able to come up with a coherent and persuasive response that could counter the scheme.

4. Biharis don’t believe allegations of Nitish’s failing mental health

This election took place against the backdrop of growing concern about Nitish Kumar’s mental health. For months, the Opposition has pointed to videos showing the chief minister’s unusual behaviour in public, saying he is not fit for public office any more.

However, the issue did not resonate with voters. Most people I spoke to agreed that the chief minister was visibly ageing. But they would, at the same time, argue that he appeared to be fully in control of his politics.

The seat-sharing arrangement within the National Democratic Alliance does appear to bear this out. Where the JD(U) gave up one seat for one of its allies, it took two for itself in return.

For example, the JD(U) gave up the seat of Tarapur, which it had won in 2020, for BJP’s Samrat Choudhary. In exchange, the BJP let go of two constituencies that it won last time: Barauli and Kahalgaon.

Chirag Paswan’s faction of the Lok Janshakti Party is widely believed to have hurt the JD(U) on several seats in the last Assembly elections. This time, it is part of the BJP-JD(U) coalition and is contesting in 28 constituencies.

This shows that the JD(U) and its allies were able to avoid infighting and arrive at an understanding for all 243 constituencies in Bihar.

In stark contrast, the Mahagathbandhan failed to do that in as many as 12 seats. While Opposition parties sought to downplay these contests by calling them “friendly”, Scroll found that they were anything but.

5. Nitish has not been subsumed by BJP

In spite of the so-called friendly fights, the Mahagathbandhan made Tejashwi Yadav its chief minister face. The National Democratic Alliance, on the other hand, dithered from doing the same with Nitish Kumar.

In fact, leaders like Amit Shah made public statements suggesting that the alliance would pick a chief minister only after the election. Nitish, in turn, responded by doubling down and focusing on the JD(U) campaign while simultaneously signalling his disgruntlement. The approach may have helped him garner some sympathy. I met Nitish supporters who voiced their suspicion of the JD(U)’s allies.

“Today, Nitish’s friends are a greater threat to him than his enemies,” said Ramnaresh Singh, a resident of Nitish’s ancestral village. “The BJP would have been nothing in Bihar without him. It is, at its core, a party of the Vaishyas [merchant castes] even though it gets votes from others, too, these days.”

So intense were these tensions that the state was briefly rife with rumours of JD(U) voters not coming out in support of BJP candidates. They were reportedly upset at Nitish not being declared the National Democratic Alliance’s chief ministerial candidate.

While the results suggest the cracks were eventually papered over, it is important to note that it is the JD(U), and not the BJP, that has emerged as the biggest gainer in this election. With this, the chief minister debate looks settled for now.

But even before the results came out, Nitish had made it clear to his Hindutva ally that he is his own man. A day after voting concluded, Bihar’s longest serving chief minister offered prayers at a Hindu temple, a Muslim shrine and a Sikh gurudwara.

It remains to be seen, though, if in his next term he will live up to that oft-repeated JD(U) slogan: “Nitish sabke hain.” Nitish belongs to one and all.