Bihar Election 2025: Tiger Abhi Zinda Hai

The tiger is Nitish Kumar. There were a lot of barbs against him in the run-up to the elections: that he is seriously unwell, he is suffering from dementia, he is ‘Bihar’s Biden’. What a stupendous reply he has given to all his critics, when he was barely able to manage to speak in rallies, when there were enough daggers drawn within the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) against him, when most pundits had written him off. 

There is an abiding image of Nitish Kumar from a rally in Triveniganj in Madhubani district just before the polling for the first phase ended on 6 November. He stood up on the stage and read out what seemed like a written speech. He spoke about the various schemes his government had initiated and urged those who had gathered there to vote for the NDA again, to uproarious cheers. He was helped off the stage by his minders. A group of journalists quickly went near the barricade where his SUV was parked. We sent word through the senior police officer there if we could meet him, even if for five minutes. 

I don’t know whether the request was passed on to him but when his car passed by, he smiled and made a small wave at us. We had been trying to meet him but it seemed his team was stonewalling us. Whether he met journalists or not, his connect with the people was intact. Even in the Rashtriya Janata Dal (JD(U) bastions like Darbhanga, when we travelled through the villages, very few people had anything to say about him. There were a few youngsters who said that it’s time for a change, that Nitish Kumar had ruled for 20 years, but most others, especially women had no complaints against him. 

In Kishanganj’s Faringora constituency, Kusum Devi was very upset that she had not got the Rs 10,000 others in her village had received through the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojna. The scheme, announced days before the Election Commission shared the polling dates for Bihar, offers one woman in every family Rs 10,000 to start a small business. The Opposition called it a direct bribe. The direct transfer benefit machinery was so well-oiled that most women got the money just days after the scheme was announced. But Kusum Devi had not and she showed us the forms she had filled which had been returned with a reject stamp. So, who would she vote for this time? “Nitish Kumar,” she replied. But his government had not kept the promise of Rs 10,000 to her? “That’s fine. We will keep applying and I am sure I will get the money sometime. But what Nitish ji has done for Bihar’s progress is much greater than my problem,” she said. 

Even his most ardent supporters did not expect such a fantastic showing by the JD(U)—30 seats up from the last elections at the time of writing this piece. What does it mean to Nitish Kumar, most likely his last tenure as chief minister, and to Bihar? How physically and mentally fit is he is to hold such an important office, to make so many vital decisions and run a government? There is no clear second-in-command in the JD(U) and it will be difficult for anybody to emerge as a leader of the Nitish Kumar’s stature. How will his equation with the Bharatiya Janata Party  (BJP), the party which will end up as the single largest one in these polls, change? Nitish Kumar has been lampooned as ‘Palturam’ for his many U-turns between allying with the RJD and the BJP in the past. If the ties within the NDA deteriorate in the coming days, is there enough roar left in the tiger to make yet another palat?