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Does BJP even need Nitish Kumar's JD(U) to form Bihar govt? What numbers say, what they don't
Ahead of the 2025 election, speculation rose about Nitish Kumar's CM-ship chances, because the 74-year-old veteran socialist leader had some health concerns too
A central question in the Bihar election 2025 was whether or not JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar's reign as chief minister will continue — no matter if the NDA wins or not. And if the BJP were to explore the option of having its own CM now, the mathematical possibility likely exists, going by the trends and wins after 5.30 pm on Friday, November 14.
Nitish Kumar's party had seats way fewer than the BJP's in 2020 too, but he was still made CM. That was apparently because PM Narendra Modi's party lacked a leader tall enough to replace him.
The BJP settled for two deputy CMs eventually. That was BJP's insurance policy, said analysts, as Nitish switched to the Mahagathbandhan of the RJD and Congress in between.
Ahead of the 2025 election, speculation rose about his CM-ship chances, because the 74-year-old veteran socialist leader had some health concerns too. He was not declared the CM face formally, and the BJP managed to get an equal number of seats to contest for the first time in its alliance with the JD(U).
On result day, by evening, here's how the numbers stacked up:
- The majority mark is 122 in a House of 243. The NDA was already beyond 200, as of 5 pm. The JD(U), as part of the NDA, had over 80 seats going in its favour.
- The BJP on its own was leading in over 90 assembly segments.
- Add to the BJP's 90, the 20-odd of Chirag Paswan's LJP(RV), which is already staking a claim to a deputy CM post. That would take it to 110.
- Add the HAM(S) of Jitan Ram Manjhi and the RLM of Upendra Kushwaha, and NDA minus JD(U) can cobble up the rest.
- Simply put, that would mean the JD(U) may not be needed — mathematically — for BJP, plus some allies, to form the government; there are independents and smaller parties that may align as they please.
That's not all the math, though.
Not a one-way street: Modi needs Nitish
The JD(U) is a key contributor to the NDA tally at the Centre. Its 12 Lok Sabha MPs, along with some others, ensured that Narendra Modi became PM for a third term, even after the BJP failed to hit the majority mark of 272 on its own in the Lok Sabha election of 2024.
Modi's BJP went down to 240 seats in the Lok Sabha.
It crossed 272 with 12 MPs of the JD(U) and five from Chirag Paswan's LJP(RV) from Bihar, plus 15 of Chandrababu Naidu's TDP of Andhra Pradesh. There are other allies too, taking the total for the NDA at the Centre beyond 290.
Why math is not entire politics
It was not entirely surprising that the Bihar unit of the BJP, in its first response after the leads settled, posted a photo of PM Modi holding up Nitish Kumar's hand up for the crowds.
It came with a Bhojpuri caption that could be roughly translated to: “Modi-Nitish partnership a hit.”
This was a long away from 2013, when Nitish first broke away from the NDA, seeing the then Gujarat CM Modi as the wrong choice for the NDA's PM candidature. Nitish returned by 2017, two years after handing the BJP a bitter defeat in the 2015 state polls by putting together the original Mahagathbandhan with Lalu Prasad Yadav's RJD and the Congress.
The BJP and JD(U) won the 2020 election together.
Nitish Kumar's coronation as CM then, too, came even when his party JD(U) managed to win only 43 seats, far behind the BJP's solo tally. The JD(U) said it suffered sabotage by Chirag Paswan's LJP.
Also read | 'Bihar will progress even further': Nitish's first reaction to NDA's massive win
Now, too, the BJP is likely to remain the largest partner, but Nitish's JD(U) has improved its strike rate by a lot.
And, of course, the mandate is largely being seen as an affirmation of “good governance” by Nitish Kumar, whose welfare schemes have managed to form a vote bank beyond entrenched identities of caste, for instance.
Most analysts believed ahead of the results that at some point in the next five years, the BJP will push for its own chief minister even if Nitish were to win. Bihar is the only state in the Hindi belt where the BJP has never had a chief minister.
For now though, Nitish Kumar, despite concerns over his health, has retained his popularity.
