Amid Bihar's shifting sands in twilight of Nitish, Chirag Paswan eyes centrestage

Indian Express

18 hours ago

Suddenly, Bihar is back in the news. After all, it was from Bihar's Madhubani that the Prime Minister first chose to declare that India would track down to the ends of the earth those responsible for the killings of 26 innocent men in Pahalgam. Narendra Modi gave an all-party meeting called by the government on April 24 – two days after the Pahalgam terror attack – a miss to attend the Madhubani rally, for which he was criticised by the Opposition.
Bihar clearly holds its own importance for Modi and his party. The BJP and the RSS would like to lead a government in the state, which has so far eluded them.
It is early days yet to conclude whether nationalistic fervour would inform the Bihar Assembly elections slated for this year-end, or it would be fought on 'hyper-local' issues as many believe.
Interestingly, it is Chirag Paswan who has begun to stir the election pot. The Union Minister for Food Processing Industries heads a small Bihar-centric party, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas).
The undivided LJP – which split in 2021 following the demise of the party founder and Chirag's father Ram Vilas Paswan – had contested the 2020 Bihar polls on its own. But the party came a cropper with only one seat to its credit.
Chirag returned to the NDA fold ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections which saw his party winning all five seats it contested in Bihar. In his government 3.0, Modi inducted the LJP(RV) chief as a Cabinet minister, and there were photographs going viral of the PM and Chirag together that reflected their chemistry.
Today, Chirag has emerged as a symbol of the changes that are underway in Bihar. Clearly, he has his eyes set on the Pataliputra gaddi— as he gets set to contest the Assembly polls despite being an MP. His party has passed a resolution that he will take up 'bhavishya ki zimmedari'(responsibility of the future)— in other words, the chief ministerial role, without declaring it in so many words. The NDA will be contesting the elections under incumbent CM and JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar's leadership, though.
The LJP(RV)'s pitch for his 'future role' is aimed at projecting Chirag as the Dalit leadership's face – he is already considered a hero among Dalit youth – and expand his base among the Scheduled Castes (SCs), which constitute over 19% of Bihar's population.
There was a split in the SCs in the state after Nitish categorised 21 of its 22 sub-castes as Mahadalits (or the more marginalised among them) who needed special government assistance, excluding just the Paswan group from it to which Chirag belongs. This created a cleavage between Paswans and Mahadalits.
The Paswan community could determine the outcome of the polls in about 30 Assembly seats out of the state's 243. Chirag was said to be of the view earlier that his real challenge lay in enthusing his cadre to work with the NDA under Nitish's leadership since they were opposed to his rule.
Mahadalits are part of Nitish's support base, along with Kurmis, Koeris, Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) and Pasmanda Muslims (backward Muslims), which have always stood him in good stead on the electoral front. When he joined hands with the upper castes-backed BJP, they won successive polls. When he aligned with the Mahagathbandhan led by Lalu Prasad's RJD, they emerged victorious too.
However, despite playing a key role in government-formation in all elections since 2005, Nitish's party put up a poor performance in the 2020 polls, when its tally dipped to 43 seats – much below the BJP's 74 – from 71 seats in 2015. One of the reasons for the JD(U)'s dismal showing was the damage caused to it by Chirag in as many as 40 seats. In about 26 seats, the LJP(RV) polled more votes than the JD(U)'s defeat margin.
With the NDA's seat-sharing exercise yet to begin, Chirag is already upping the ante to stake his claim for all those seats where his party was seen to be a factor even if it did not win those seats.
Significantly, he is also keen to contest from a 'general' seat in a bid to push his base beyond Dalits. This has prompted a question whether Chirag is trying to take Nitish's place by replicating his base amid a weakening JD(U).
What is apparent is that he has decided to join the race, even if it may turn out to be a marathon, for the Bihar crown, which always eluded his father. The late Ram Vilas had worked with six PMs, from VP Singh to Narendra Modi, serving as a Union minister seven times. VP Singh saw him as a potential PM in the future—and openly spoke about it.
Many believe that the 2025 elections may mark the end of the Nitish Kumar era. Although the NDA is fighting the Bihar polls under Nitish's leadership so as not to rock the boat, the CM's growing health problems will make it difficult for him to continue in his position. The BJP may keep him going as the CM for a short spell if the NDA wins the polls, following which it would want to take the helm itself.
The BJP is already dealing with the JD(U) mainly through its other leaders like Sanjay Jha, who was named as the head of one of the seven multi-party delegations constituted by the Centre to mobilise global support in favour of India's position in the wake of Pahalgam and Operation Sindoor.
The RJD, which came close to the finishing line in 2020, has so far not been able to add to its MY (Muslim-Yadav) base by getting the support of the EBCs, which the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP managed to do in UP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, when the latter got the better of the BJP. There has also been a rumbling in the RJD's first family, with Lalu recently disowning—and expelling from the party – his elder son Tej Pratap.
A new factor in the Bihar polls this time would be the Jan Suraaj led by Prashant Kishor. The election strategist-turned-politician launched his party after undertaking a two-year padyatra across the state and has created a buzz. He has repeatedly called for Bihar to move beyond the politics of 'jaati and dharma' (caste and religion) in view of the state's perennial backwardness.
It is to be seen how Jan Suraaj would impact the outcome of the Bihar polls. In the Hindi heartland states, the call to go beyond caste has usually had an appeal for the middle classes and upper castes, which are seen to be the BJP's supporters in Bihar. The 'social justice' parties like the RJD and the JD(U) have their own caste-based line-ups.
Chirag knows only too well that if there was something that distinguished his father from other leaders of his time— it was his ability to remain relevant despite leading a small outfit. Another thing is getting clearer: The era of Lalu and Nitish is coming to an end. On the rise are young players like Tejeshawi Yadav of the RJD, Chirag and Prashant. What is going to prove decisive ultimately will be their ability to stay the course.
(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 11 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of 'How Prime Ministers Decide')