2 months ago
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When Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar filed information papers for the Rajya Sabha connected Thursday (March 5, 2026), it acceptable disconnected a rash of speculation connected the aboriginal of Bihar authorities and his party, the Janata Dal(U), obscuring the information that getting its Chief Minister successful the State aft decades of trying presents respective challenges for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Several names whitethorn beryllium floating astir from the enactment arsenic a replacement for Mr. Kumar, and the BJP precocious command’s now-famous ‘chit strategy’ of springing a last-minute astonishment campaigner for the apical occupation whitethorn beryllium an workout successful governmental control, but the concern comes with its ain ‘day-after’ problem.
For the BJP, and its earlier avatar the Jan Sangh, the maturation successful Bihar was hard-won done the wilderness years erstwhile the Congress ruled, to its relation arsenic a vanguard against the Lalu Prasad authorities and the highs of the fodder scam. Leaders specified arsenic Nand Kishore Yadav (recently elevated to politician of Nagaland), Kailashpati Mishra, erstwhile Union Minister Yashwant Sinha, Ravi Shankar Prasad and the precocious Sushil Kumar Modi steered the BJP successful the years starring up to the bifurcation of Bihar and Jharkhand, and earlier yet allying with the JD(U) successful its earlier avatar, the Samata Party, successful the mid 1990s.
The BJP was speedy to realise the benefits of the alliance, the 1990s being the precocious noon of conjugation politics. For the galore years that the BJP had an confederation with the JD(U), it remained determination with a profound consciousness of the quality of the governmental tract successful Bihar – caste arithmetic, societal justness politics, socialism, and its ain Hindutva and mostly precocious caste entreaty which appeared astatine likelihood but was rather complimentary to Mr. Kumar’s enactment basal of non-Yadav OBCs, Extremely Backward Classes and women.
Thus, the confederation ran with the BJP deliberately remaining a measurement backmost and not claiming the Chief Minister’s presumption adjacent if its fig outstripped the JD(U). Sushil Kumar Modi arsenic Deputy Chief Minister, and by past the tallest person wrong the BJP, managed that relationship, sometimes not to the restitution of its ain leaders, arsenic successful 2010 erstwhile Mr. Kumar cancelled a meal invitation to past Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi during the BJP’s nationalist enforcement conscionable successful Patna.
Mr. Kumar walked successful and retired of the confederation astatine volition and the BJP ever welcomed him back, the complimentary enactment bases pushing the alliance. This holding backmost by the BJP has landed the enactment successful a challenging concern close astatine the clip erstwhile it has its archetypal wide changeable astatine the Chief Minister’s seat – with nary large faces oregon leaders astir to assertion some the station and nationalist support.
The BJP has a heavy seat spot of leaders from respective communities – similar lawman Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary arsenic a non-Yadav OBC, Sanjeev Chaurasia who belongs to the Tambauli caste oregon EBC category, Union Minister Nityanand Rai who is simply a Yadav. Whoever gets the chair, however, volition person the unenviable task of not lone governing Bihar but beryllium the mascot of the modulation that the State’s polity and the BJP marque successful the post-Nitish Kumar era. This volition impact caller alliances, and assemblage coalitions, Bihar being 1 of the astir politically experimental States successful the country.
For the BJP the certainties of confederation with JD(U) are present over, the situation of consolidating that enactment basal remains.
