Chirag stirs NDA's pot in Bihar, tests BJP

A deep churn is underway in poll-bound Bihar's ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) where smaller partners are no longer content lingering in the shadows of dominant ones - the BJP and the Janata Dal United.

Leading this shift is Lok Janshakti Party’s (Ram Vilas) president Chirag Paswan who once prided in calling himself “Hanuman” to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Having won all five Lok Sabha seats allotted to him in the 2024 General elections, Chirag is now openly weighing between loyalty and ambition.

News is he is seeking 40 seats in the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections, in demands that could upend the NDA's delicate seat-sharing arrangements. Though the BJP is learnt to have offered him 20 to 25 segments out of 243 in Bihar, the 42-year-old continues to persist in private parleys, in public rallies and has even gone to the extent of once stating that he would go solo on all 243 seats.

Though the BJP has firmly dismissed this possibility (of Chirag going alone), sources do acknowledge the LJP chief's soaring ambitions coupled with another ally - Jitan Ram Majhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM), which is equally persistent on a larger seat share in Gaya and Aurangabad areas - again a situation that will test the NDA's resilience.

The Chirag factor is crucial for the 2025 Bihar polls because in the 2020 Assembly elections, he had not fought as part of the NDA. Having lost his father, the tall Dalit Paswan icon Ram Vilas Paswan in the midst of 2020 election cycle, Chirag got an early taste of political bitterness when JDU stalwart and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar backed his uncle Pashupati Paras over him in the family's succession war. For sometime before the course correction in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP courted Paras even giving him a Union Ministerial berth.

But once Chirag proved his indispensability by fielding Dalit candidates and denting the JDU in several seats it was contesting as part of the NDA bloc in 2020 state polls, he was back in favour with the BJP which gave him five seats, including father's legacy segment of Hajipur, in the last general election.

Chirag proved his mettle by bagging them all. “He now wants his pound of flesh and the BJP's challenge would be to balance out ally ambitions - of Nitish Kumar, Chirag and Jitan Ram Majhi," admitted a source after Shah chaired a crucial Bihar core committee meeting this week to discuss alliance coordination, campaign and other poll strategies.

For the BJP, the challenge stems from the fact that in 2020, the JDU contested 115 seats in a 243-member Assembly, BJP 110, Vikasheel Insaan Party 11, HAM 8 and Chirag went solo in 135 seats. The NDA won 125 with BJP's 74 and JDU's 43 and Chirag was widely blamed for undermining Nitish's prospects as JDU's seat tally plummeted from 71 in 2015 to 43 in 2020.

With Nitish again laying claim on a larger share of seats than the BJP in Bihar, even if a symbolic one seat, it remains to be seen how the saffron brigade manages alliance anxieties in the eastern state where opposition RJD and Congress coalition is gaining traction over alleged vote theft under the garb of Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision campaign.

BJP sources say it's the NDA alliance's caste balance that makes the bloc formidable in Bihar. Every ally brings something significant to the table, they add.

While the BJP holds a sway among upper castes and non-Yadav OBCs; Nitish, despite health concerns, continues to be popular among Kurmis and Extremely Backward Classes. The LJP dominates Dalit Paswans and Majhi is a tall Mushahar Mahadalit leader.

Bihar leaders say in 2020 when Chirag went alone, he won only one seat - Begusarai's Matihani - out of 135 but secured 5.66% of the votes polled.

This signalled his ability to spoil electoral arithmetic. By 2024 general elections, the LJP's vote share had surged to 6.59%, further cementing its standing as an indispensable force within the NDA, Nitish Kumar's reservations notwithstanding.

With Chirag now openly attacking CM Nitish over Bihar's fragile law and order issues, it remains to be seen how the BJP, the eldest of NDA partners, reconciles alliance contradictions.

Modi and Shah would not like to ignore Chirag and they can most certainly not ignore Nitish whose JDU was the only constant factor in all alliances that won Bihar elections - 2010, 2015, 2020 Assembly and 2009 and 2019 Lok Sabha.

The sole exception to this trend was the 2014 general election in which the JD (U) stood decimated, winning just two of Bihar's 40 seats.