Will Nitish Kumar remain the face of the NDA in the Bihar Assembly election?

“Jab Baat Bihar Ki ho, Naam Sirf Nitish Kumar Ka Ho” (When it is about Bihar, Nitish Kumar should be the only name)—the Janata Dal (United) slogan during Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Pragati Yatra that started from Champaran on December 23, sought to build an impression that Kumar is the face of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and is in command like he was in the many previous elections.

On the posters was a picture of the relatively younger-looking, bespectacled Nitish Kumar gesturing assertively with his index finger. Team Nitish’s assertion comes amid conflicting statements from the BJP, the NDA’s lead partner in Bihar, over the alliance’s leadership for the 2025 Assembly election.

Kumar has been the face of the NDA in the State since the October 2005 Assembly election and was made Chief Minister even when the BJP won more Assembly seats than the JD(U), like in 2020.

Also Read | Nitish Kumar saves the day for NDA in Bihar

In 2015 when Kumar fought the State election in alliance with Lalu Prasad’s RJD, he got the Chief Minister’s chair even though the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) bagged more seats than the JD(U) did.

Kumar, first called ‘Mr Clean’ for his non-corrupt image and later nicknamed “Paltu Ram” for his frequent political somersaults, has shifted alliances multiple times. He broke his 17-year-old alliance with the BJP in 2013 to join hands with the RJD and Congress in 2015, only to return to the BJP in 2017. In 2022, he parted ways with the BJP again and allied with the RJD-Congress before switching back to the NDA in January 2024. Despite winning fewer seats than the RJD and BJP, Kumar has consistently managed to claim the leadership position in both alliances.

This proves his indispensability in Bihar politics. His rivals among the allies have grudgingly acknowledged this on various occasions. However, for the past few years, there have been repeated calls within the BJP for its own Chief Minister in Bihar even as the saffron party has gone the extra mile to accommodate the JD(U) in both the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The speculation about the leadership of the NDA in Bihar gained momentum when the BJP in Maharashtra, after winning the largest number of seats in the Mahayuti alliance, replaced Chief Minister Eknath Shinde of its ally Shiv Sena with its own leader Devendra Fadnavis.

With trepidation in the JD(U) already growing since the Maharashtra development, Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s cryptic comment in a television interview, “We will sit together and decide”, in response to a question on who will lead the coalition in Bihar, added to the intrigue.

Sensing the unease in the JD(U) over the issue, the Bihar BJP later sought to allay its fears by planning a joint camp under the leadership of Nitish Kumar and reiterating that he would remain the leader of the alliance. With the latest slogan at Kumar’s Yatra, the JD(U) has reinforced its claim on the NDA leadership in Bihar.

Getting the slogan right

In the 2015 Assembly election when Kumar’s JD(U) allied with Lalu Prasad’s RJD, the poll slogan was “Bihar me bahar hai, Nitishe Kumar hai” (There is prosperity in Bihar, it is only Nitish Kumar) with the maverick socialist caste leader Lalu Prasad tactically receding to the background to pre-empt the BJP’s alleged “jungle raj” campaign against his tenure.

In the 2020 State election, when Nitish Kumar once again allied with the BJP, he became the poster boy of the NDA, and the slogan “Kyon karen vichar, theeke to hai Nitish Kumar” (Why think over it? Nitish Kumar is good enough). Later the slogan was modified to “Kyon karen vichar jab hai hi Nitish Kumar” (Why rethink when Nitish Kumar is very much here?).

The JD(U) was trying to assure the voters that even after it changed alliance partners from RJD-Congress to the BJP, Nitish Kumar retained command of the grouping. The JD(U) had started the slogan campaign one year before the 2020 polls, and it was mocked by the opposition parties.

In the same fashion, the JD(U) chief’s five-day-long Pragati Yatra, with the new slogan emphasising that it is Nitish Kumar whose persona matters for the alliance in Bihar, started nearly a year before the October 2025 Assembly election.

Betting on the yatra

Kumar began the Pragati Yatra from Champaran, the land of the indigo agitation led by Mahatma Gandhi during the freedom movement. The political symbolism of the place is strong, and when poll strategist Prashant Kishor began his yatra under the banner of his Jan Suraaj party to connect with the masses last, he too chose the same place.

The Bihar Cabinet sanctioned a sum of Rs.225 crore for this yatra, in whose first leg Kumar covered West Champaran, East Champaran, Shivhar, Sitamarhi, Muzaffarpur, and Vaishali and reviewed the functioning of his pet schemes—Saat Nischaya part I, Saat Nischay part II, Jal Jeevan Haryali—besides holding discussions with the beneficiaries and having a conversation with the women residents.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who himself traversed the state for a karyakarta darshan (meeting the functionaries) to engage in samvad karyakram (discussions) on an Aabhar (gratitude) Yatra, mocked Nitish Kumar’s Pragati (progress) Yatra, quipping that it is actually his alvida yatra (farewell journey) as Kumar’s time in politics is up. The RJD also attacked Kumar for repeatedly changing the name of his Yatra from Mahila Samvad (discussions with women) to Samaj Sudhar (social reform) and then Pragati Yatra and cited it as a sign of Kumar’s weakening mental faculties. Yadav also questioned how many problems were resolved after Kumar’s earlier Samadhan (peace) Yatra.

However, the Pragati Yatra is not Kumar’s first. A close look at his political career of the past 20 years since he became Chief Minister shows that his nearly 15 yatras have always helped him make a comeback, barring the 2014 Lok Sabha election when all his calculations went wrong and he could win only two Lok Sabha seats out of 40 in Bihar.

He subsequently resigned as Chief Minister and, for a short period, anointed Jitan Ram Manjhi, a Mahadalit leader, as his successor.

Very few people who know Bihar politics are ready to accept that the Nitish Kumar phenomenon is a thing of the past now. Journalist-author Rasheed Kidwai said, “It’s often said that a cat has nine lives. On the political turf, Nitish Kumar seems to have dozens. Every time there is an election or a crucial juncture in Indian politics, Nitish changes sides or occupies a central role. More commendable is the fact that invariably, Nitish has been on the winning side, and his social base has remained loyal in spite of the brazen and opportunistic flip-flops. Would Nitish be successful…? We need to just wait and watch.”