BJP Aims To Replicate Delhi Success In Bihar Polls

With its win in Delhi, which marked the culmination of nearly three decades of effort to come to power, the BJP strategists are now hoping to replicate this success in Bihar, where elections are scheduled in less than eight months.

- ABHINANDAN MISHRA

Bihar-based BJP leaders sense the possibility of forming the government in the state for the first time with their own Chief Minister, as incumbent Nitish Kumar has announced that he will not be active in electoral politics anymore. This suggests that if the National Democratic Alliance comes to power after the Assembly elections, a BJP CM will likely take the helm.

With the JDU being an individual-centric party, it is likely to face huge challenges once its most popular leader, Nitish fades away from the political landscape and hence its leaders too believe that their best chance to survive and flourish is to continue to work even more closely with the BJP, even if that means being led by a BJP CM post November 2025, something that has never happened before despite Bihar being the heartland of the "Hindi belt" and the BJP, for long, being seen as the representative of Hindi belt electorates.

However, the leaders and political observers agree that while BJP's election strategies, often termed as the "Amit Shah school of election management," helped it come to power in Delhi where it was not dominant for years, the same result would be difficult, if not impossible, to replicate in Bihar.

In the last election the BJP contested on 110 seats, winning 74 of it in comparison to the extremely poor performance of the JDU, which despite contesting on more seats (115), could only win on 43 of them. This seat sharing agreement is likely to change this time, with the BJP getting more seats to contest on.