Why Nitish Kumar May Want Early Elections In Bihar

Demands for early state elections have started to resurface in Bihar’s power circle. The speculations around them gained momentum after a news report along similar lines by The New Indian Express.

Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) supporting One Nation, One Election is also being interpreted as an endorsement of early assembly elections by Nitish Kumar.

The demand (for early election) initially arose in the aftermath of JD(U)’s good performance in the General Elections 2024.

Sources said that earlier, JD(U) wanted to conduct Bihar Assembly Elections (AE) along with Jharkhand AE this year, but the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did not agree to it. Now, JD(U) wants elections along with Delhi — which will take place towards the end of January or the first week of February 2025.

If one judges from the on-ground situation, parties have already begun their preparations.

Upendra Kushwaha, Tejashwi Yadav and Prashant Kishor are doing their respective yatras. Parties like BJP, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) are running their membership drives on a war footing.

Even Nitish Kumar himself has hit the ground running by making sudden inspections of the implementation of various schemes.

Behind JD(U)'s demand for early elections lies a calculation and a desire to reassert that the party has risen from the debacle in 2020 AE.

In the 2020 AE, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) slipped to being third-largest party in the state. After that, calls for the end of JD(U) had begun. For JD(U), the General Elections of 2024 were arguably the semi-final before the 2025 AE.

Perhaps that is why Kumar decided to rejoin the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) — hoping that he would cruise through with the support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The gamble paid off.

JD(U) returned with a better strike rate than the BJP, winning 12 out of the 16 seats allocated. In 73 assembly segments within those 12 Lok Sabha seats, JD(U) held a decisive lead in 67.

Overall, out of the 97 seats it contested, the party won 74. JD(U) won at least one assembly seat in 15 out of the 16 Lok Sabha seats.

This was a big factor in NDA maintaining sway over 177 out of 243 assembly segments in the state.

Kumar wants to leverage this position before the intra-NDA battle gains momentum.

Since Nitish Kumar's return to the NDA fold, BJP Bihar leadership has repeatedly raised voices of discontent.

Senior BJP leaders like Sanjay Paswan and Ashwini Choubey have expressed disappointment over the party choosing Nitish Kumar as the face of NDA. They want the party to field one of its own candidates as the chief ministerial face in the 2025 AE.

Nitish Kumar’s secular image and the related coalition compulsion are also contentious issues. It was believed to be the reason why senior BJP Bihar leaders did not explicitly support Yogi Adityanath government’s directive to display shops' names during Kanwar Yatra.

Time and again, news of public scuffles between leaders of both parties keep surfacing. Even at the time of writing, JD(U) leader Gopal Mandal and BJP leader Engineer Shailendra were sizing each other up.

Even in government programmes, leaders of both parties check who has invited them. If the BJP organises it, JD(U) leaders do not come, and vice-versa. The difference is now apparent between the Chief Minister and the deputy chief ministers too.

Before the cold war takes the shape of a full-fledged divide between the two parties, Kumar wants the elections to be done.

Another member of the NDA coalition whom Kumar would want to tame is Chirag Paswan, president of Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) or LJP(RV). Paswan was responsible for JD(U)’s decline to third position in the 2020 AE.

His decision to field candidates on JD(U) seats ended up snatching crucial vote shares from JD(U), reducing its total to a mere 43 seats. Before he took charge as union minister in the Modi 3.0 cabinet, there were speculations that BJP may present him as NDA’s CM candidate in the 2025 AE.

Paswan is currently focused on his pitch for the Jharkhand AE, but recently his party announced that preparations are ongoing for all 243 assembly segments in Bihar. This is seen as a warning of a repeat of 2020 for JD(U).

The signal is clear that if LJP(RV) is not given its desired seats, it will act as a vote-cutter and hamper NDA's chances, particularly JD(U).

Along with Paswan, another person itching to play this role is Prashant Kishor, though he does not say it explicitly. His Jan Suraaj Padyatra has been going on in Bihar for the past two years and will transform into a new political party on 2 October 2024.

His new party will reportedly seek to have one crore founding members, and RJD has already positioned it to be a significant player by releasing a letter warning of disciplinary action against its members who join hands with Kishor.

Although still in its nascent stages, Kumar won't underestimate Kishor. Kishor is credited with reviving Kumar’s political career after his gamble of not going with NDA in the 2014 General Elections had massively failed.

Kishor’s appeal, in some ways, mirrors what Kumar is known for. Both leaders’ development ideas focus on the empowerment of women and youth, creating jobs, and stopping migration.

Kumar won the 2005 AE on these promises. He fears that Kishor may repeat this feat in 2025. Kumar knows that the more time Kishor gets, the lower JD(U)’s chances of winning more than 43 seats.

Multiple flip-flops by Kumar has resulted in him losing traction among average voters. He is standing on a thin ice and racing against time.