Why Nitish Kumar wins Bihar every time: It’s not just women voters

The turn of the 21st Century was a different world. India was still trying to find its geostrategic feat in a post-Cold War world and in the aftermath of nuclear tests. An average Indian was earning Rs 10,306 a year. This meant she could buy 20 grams of gold and spare Rs 1,506 for other expenses. This was when Nitish Kumar had taken oath as the Bihar chief minister for the first time. He promised to give hope. People seemed to test him first.

Bihar was the poorest back then, with declining per capita income — World Bank estimate said it fell from Rs 1,373 to Rs 1,289 — after 10 years of rule of Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi. It was against this backdrop emerged Lalu Prasad’s principal challenger, a former partner, Nitish Kumar on the scene of Bihar politics. Bihar is still the poorest state but with a per capita income of over Rs 32,000.

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Before being parachuted back to the state by the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition, whose Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister in New Delhi, Nitish Kumar’s politics had been more national in focus. Lalu Prasad dominated Bihar like no other politician did before.

With the sun setting below the horizon on March 3, 2000, a new “son of Bihar” rose in state politics. Nitish Kumar took oath as Bihar’s 27th chief minister at 5 pm in Patna. His swearing-in event was a major controversy, with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leading protests on the streets of Patna, raising slogans against the then-Governor Vinod Chandra Pande for ignoring his wife’s claim.

A week later, on March 10, Nitish went back to the Vajpayee government. He resigned three days before Pande’s deadline to prove his government’s majority on the floor of the house in the Bihar Legislative Assembly — giving Lalu-Rabri supporters an additional reason to celebrate what they called “kurta-faad [torn-shirt]” Holi, which fell on March 20 that year.

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The little experiment of forming a minority government in Bihar by Nitish Kumar mimicked what Vajpayee had done at the Centre in 1996 — the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government lasted 13 days, with the prime minister resigning before the Lok Sabha voted on the confidence motion. Both events are now seen as attempts by the NDA — the pan-India counter-Congress coalition — to send messages to their voters that they were ready to govern the state and the Union whatever the case might be.

The true homecoming of Nitish Kumar

In 2004, the NDA lost the national election. This proved a boon in disguise for Nitish Kumar. Bihar voted twice in 2005 — Nitish Kumar’s party, the Janata Dal-United more than doubled its vote share in February 2005, and more than tripled in the October 2005 election. As the BJP maintained its vote share, with an upward tick, the two parties together secured 143 berths in the 243-member Bihar Assembly.

Nitish Kumar had arrived. He had also made his party a senior partner in the NDA. The BJP had won 67 seats in the 2000 Bihar Assembly election. But with spare time after the NDA’s loss in the 2004 parliamentary election, Nitish Kumar led an energetic campaign, and improved his party’s tally from 21 in February 2000 to 88 in October 2005, when he staked claim to form the government for his second official term and first with any real authority to govern.

He has been running the Bihar government ever since, except for a period when he resigned as the chief minister after his party failed to make a mark in the 2014 Lok Sabha election swept by the Modi wave. He had parted ways with the BJP ahead of the 2014 national polls, but returned to the fold in 2017.

All these 20 years, Nitish Kumar has proven his political mettle in Bihar elections every five years. He has been the difference between who piggybacks him to power in Patna.

The switch hit of 2015

The 2015 Bihar election was being viewed as the real test of Nitish Kumar’s political viability in the state that had given the BJP-led coalition 39 Members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha. Nitish Kumar’s JDU had failed to win a single seat. The Modi wave was still rising, particularly through the Hindi belt.

Nitish Kumar switched sides and patched up with his arch-rival Lalu Prasad. They teamed up and together won 151 seats. Riding on their back, the Congress jumped to 27 in 2015 from four in 2010. The JDU’s own tally took a hit from 115 to 71, but its pairing up with the RDJ gave the latter a jump of 58 seats — 80 from 22. The BJP got 53 despite recording its highest-ever vote share of over 24 per cent.

He switched sides again — earning the pejorative nickname of “Paltu Ram” (the one who does political somersault) from Lalu Prasad — in 2017 to return to the NDA fold. His political reconciliation with the BJP ensured they retained power in 2020 in a nail-biting contest.

And when most political pundits started doubting Nitish Kumar’s electoral saleability in the 2025 Bihar Assembly election, he still prevailed over the BJP to treat the JDU as its equal partner during seat-sharing talks. This is despite the fact that the JDU could win only 43 of the 243 seats in the Bihar Assembly — its lowest total since 2000.

The latest trends from the counting centres indicate a landslide victory for the coalition that also includes the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) of Union minister Chirag Paswan. The NDA was heading to win over 200 seats ( latest Bihar Assembly election results are here), while its challenger the Mahagathbandhan or the Grand Alliance looked pulverised, with the prospect of having less than 40 seats in the Bihar Assembly.

So, what makes Nitish TINA in Bihar?

There is a cliche about Bihar politics that people here don’t cast their vote, they vote their caste instead. Nitish Kumar’s caste (Kurmi) is not a big vote bank in Bihar — not more than four per cent. And with Koeri, the Luv-Kush pair, the community has around seven per cent votes. Yet, Nitish Kumar defies all punditry by political observers and commentators, who question his mental sharpness due to advancing age — he is 74.

What keeps him a favourite with a poor state with a median age of 22 — 58 per cent of Bihar’s population is under 25, and 40 per cent under 18 years of age?

• No corruption taint: Despite a long political career, with portfolios including Union ministries and chief minister of one of the most populous states of India, Nitish Kumar has remained free from corruption taint. Even his bitter political adversaries don’t accuse him of corruption. They call him “Paltu Ram” or “forgetful CM”. This corruption-free image still weaves magic in states like Bihar, where corruption in government departments is still a norm. He quit the Grand Alliance in 2017 when his then-Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav refused to clarify his stand on the allegations of corruption.

• No communal paint: Nitish Kumar has been one of the oldest allies of the BJP, whose rivals accuse it of promoting a communal agenda in the country. The BJP’s association with the movement for Ayodhya’s Ram Mandir through decades is said to have kept many leaders away from its fold for the fear of earning the “communal” tag. Nitish Kumar is not among them. His about 20-year rule in Bihar has not seen any major communal riot, in contrast to Lalu-Rabri rule when Sitamarhi clashes left at least 48 dead in 1992.

• The constituency of women: Many leaders attempted to carve out women as a separate political constituency across India, but Nitish Kumar stands unmatched in achieving this feat. His prohibition measure is much published. It emerged from a casual conversation with women in eastern Bihar on a political tour after winning the 2015 election. He has reserved 50 per cent seats in all panchayati raj (local bodies) for women. He distributed bicycles to high school girls to encourage them to complete school education. He has reserved 35 per cent seats in Bihar government jobs for women.

• Mahadalit caste calculus: Nitish Kumar created a community that is not recognised in any other Indian state — Mahadalit. And he has been expanding the count of Scheduled Castes (SCs) under this category. Currently, there are 21of the 23 SCs in the Mahadalit category. The government has rolled out special plans for their education and entrepreneurship besides allocating reservation within reservation in jobs. This community makes up about 18-20 per cent of Bihar’s electorate.

• A pan-Bihar face: Politically, Nitish Kumar has established himself as a TINA (there is no alternative) leader, who has supporters and critics as well across castes, class and creed. But there is no leader in any other party with a pan-Bihar appeal matching his acumen. His emerging rival Tejashwi Yadav is a school dropout and comes with the baggage of the corruption taint of his father Lalu Prasad, who was convicted and jailed for his role in the multi-crore fodder scam spanning Bihar and Jharkhand. The Lalu-Rabri rule is often described in “jungle raj” where the public is not protected against those who govern the state. This backdrop has helped Nitish Kumar claim the nickname of Sushasan Babu (the good governing gentleman).

As Nitish Kumar leads the NDA to another electoral victory in Bihar, he looks set for his 10th oath as the Bihar chief minister on November 18 — proving his longevity in the battle of political wits and votes.