The significance of Nitish Kumar

On October 6, 2025, the day the Election Commission of India declared dates for the Assembly elections in Bihar, varied gamers, together with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief J.P. Nadda and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Tejashwi Yadav, asserted that their events will win. However, the State’s longest-serving Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, didn’t say something.

Mr. Kumar’s silence doesn’t imply he’s absent from the competition. In reality, the largest query hanging over the polls is the state of his well being and whether or not the voters is inclined to reward him with a final electoral victory and ship him off into the sundown, or vote in opposition to him and ship him into political oblivion.

Mr. Kumar has carved out a big voter help base, which incorporates Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs), Mahadalits, some sections of Pasmanda (backward) Muslims, and the “casteless” class of ladies voters. These teams have stored religion in Mr. Kumar for greater than 20 years — by means of his 9 swearing-in ceremonies as Chief Minister and his many cartwheels on alliances and companions. “Sarkar kisi ki bhi ho, mukhyamantri toh Nitish hello banega (Whoever types the federal government, will probably be headed by Nitish Kumar)” had change into a staple sentiment in Bihar.

Mr. Kumar’s means to accommodate and alter to totally different alliance companions and induce them to acknowledge his management has been attributed to his reinterpretation of social justice politics within the State. He has strategically carved out his personal voter base from the broader Mandal OBC bloc, the place the Yadav group was perceived to be monopolising energy and privilege on the expense of different teams. While this reinterpretation of social justice politics has made Mr. Kumar helpful to the BJP, his means to restrict The Hindutva politics of the BJP whereas in alliance with the celebration has made him a alternative for the INDIA bloc as properly, at any time when he wished to vary sides. Apart from this, reforms in governance and enhancements in regulation and order, particularly when seen in opposition to the RJD years, helped him appeal to help from ladies and youthful voters.

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However, Mr. Kumar’s poor well being has introduced questions of succession to the fore. People have questioned who will inherit the celebration mantle and whether or not voting him again will solely present a window of alternative for the BJP to lastly seize the Chief Minister’s chair in Bihar. What complicates issues is that there is no such thing as a growth of management — both in his alliance or elsewhere — that would substitute him. The TINA (there is no such thing as a different) issue is what made him change sides simply. And it’s the similar issue that’s forcing even the BJP, which is raring to assert management in any other case, kick the can down the street.

Thus, the underlying subtext of the Bihar polls revolves round Mr. Kumar. The National Democratic Alliance has discerned this subtext: in a burst of pre-poll vitality, the State authorities introduced a slew of measures, starting from a ₹10,000 revenue and entrepreneurship scheme for girls, free electrical energy models, elevated pensions, and better pay for welfare staff. The BJP has unequivocally said that Mr. Kumar will stay Chief Minister if the NDA is voted again.

It is similar subtext that has led to the emergence of the Jan Suraaj Party (JSP) headed by ballot strategist, Prashant Kishor. The JSP’s narrative, centred on the necessity for a brand new entrant, is clearly geared toward capturing votes from those that are considering a post-Nitish Kumar state of affairs. Whether that objective will manifest now or in 2030 — the 12 months of the following Assembly polls — stays to be seen. Thus, the second most necessary unknowable of those polls is simply how a lot the JSP will dent the voter base of established political events and decide the path of the NDA or the INDIA bloc.

Politics in Bihar has been a supply of attention-grabbing meta-narratives for nationwide politics over the previous couple of a long time — starting from anti-Congress-ism, to student-led anti-Emergency actions, to the altering discourse on social justice politics, and expressions of sub-nationalist delight. Mr. Kumar has been a significant participant in shaping many of those meta-narratives, particularly in reinterpreting social justice politics and Bihari delight. The questions over his future have thus emerged not simply because the underlying subtext in these elections, however as a central meta-narrative — one that’s more likely to form outcomes on outcome day.