After years of pillion-riding, BJP readies to take the driving seat in Bihar

When Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar filed his nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, March 5, 2026, he launched a series of speculations about the future of Bihar politics and his party Janata Dal(U), hiding the fact that bringing its Chief Minister to the state after decades of efforts poses several challenges for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

There may be a few names floating around in the party to replace Mr Kumar, and the now-famous “bullshit strategy” of the BJP brass to field a surprise candidate for the top job at the last minute may be an exercise in political control, but it brings with it its own “aftermath” problem.

Growth in Bihar for the BJP and its earlier avatar, the Jan Sangh, was hard won during the wild years of Congress rule, due to its pioneering role against the Lalu Prasad government and the heights of the fodder scam. Leaders like Nand Kishore Yadav (recently elevated to the post of governor of Nagaland), Kailashpati Mishra, former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha, Ravi Shankar Prasad and the late Sushil Kumar Modi guided the BJP in the years leading up to the bifurcation of Bihar and Jharkhand, before finally forming an alliance with the JD(U) in its previous avatar, the Samata Party, in the mid-1990s.

Since the 1990s were the heyday of coalition politics, the BJP quickly realized the benefits of the alliance. Throughout the many years during which the BJP was allied with the JD(U), he remained there with a deep understanding of the nature of the political space in Bihar – caste arithmetic, social justice politics, socialism and his own Hindutva and largely upper-caste appeal, which seemed contradictory but was quite flattering for Mr. Kumar’s support base of non-Yadav OBCs, Extremely Backward Classes and women.

Thus, the alliance progressed with the BJP deliberately taking a step back and not demanding the Prime Minister’s position even if its numbers exceeded that of the JD(U). Sushil Kumar Modi, Deputy Prime Minister and the tallest leader in the BJP by then, sometimes failed to manage this relationship to the satisfaction of his own leaders; Like when Mr. Kumar canceled his dinner invitation to then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi during the BJP’s national executive meeting in Patna in 2010.

While Mr. Kumar entered and exited the alliance at his own will and the BJP always welcomed him, his complementary support bases pushed the alliance. This backsliding by the BJP has put the party in a tough spot, just as it is making its first clear shot at the Prime Minister’s post, with no prominent faces or leaders to command both mandate and public support.

The BJP has a deep line-up of leaders from various communities like Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary as an OBC who is not a Yadav, Sanjeev Chaurasia who belongs to the Tambauli caste or EBC category, Union Minister Nityanand Rai who is a Yadav. But whoever gets the seat will not only have the unenviable task of governing Bihar but will also be the mascot of the transition made by the state government and the BJP in the post-Nitish Kumar era. This will include new alliances and community coalitions; Bihar is one of the most politically experimental states in the country.

Now that the certainty of an alliance with the JD(U) is over for the BJP, the challenge of consolidating that support base remains.