Bihar Election: BJP ready to contest Bihar elections with caste and party, plans to repeat the success of Delhi and Maharashtra

The battle for the Bihar assembly will take place in late 2025. Currently, the state is ruled by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, led by Janata Dal United (JDU) chief Nitish Kumar as the chief minister. There are a total of 243 seats in the Bihar assembly and the NDA has 138 seats. At the moment, the BJP is the largest party with 84 MLAs. With just a few months left for the elections in the eastern state, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has started preparing its strategy.

It is believed that the saffron party would take inspiration from its recent experience in Delhi, especially its constant outreach with the people and well-thought-out election machinery, which led to favourable results.

Within a month or two, the saffron party leaders will land in the state and tour the entire state to reach out to people. The party leaders will be asked to spend the night in villages and slums like the Delhi leaders.

Caste, Social Engineering and Feedback

Caste dominance is a very important factor in Bihar's electoral politics, and this is already on the minds of the saffron party leaders. Every section of society and community will be reached out to garner support for the NDA.

Social engineering will play a big role, and the BJP and its alliance partners will put a lot of emphasis on this factor. The leaders who will take the field will include Union ministers, MPs, MLAs and office bearers from across the country.

To ensure the deployment of political leaders, BJP has carefully planned several elections by individually identifying people, deploying people from different states (based on geographical location, caste equations and linguistic affinities).

Sources aware of the developments have told CNN-News18 that the NDA will fight this election in the name of incumbent CM Nitish Kumar. However, the decision on who will be the next Chief Minister of Bihar will be taken only after the results and figures are out. NDA leaders will consult Nitish Kumar before taking any final decision after the election results.

Through its outreach, the BJP does not want to make it just a publicity or propaganda strategy but wants to make it a two-pronged one — getting feedback from people at the grassroots level and then providing solutions based on the views received.

Establishing a two-way dialogue has proved extremely beneficial for the BJP, not just in the recent Delhi elections, but also during its sweeping victories in both Haryana and Maharashtra.

The leaders who come on the ground will also emphasize to the people the works done for public welfare by the Modi government at the Center and the Nitish Kumar government in the state.

Increase in budget and survey

The leaders will also emphasize on the importance given to Bihar in the recently presented budget by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Several projects were approved to ensure development, welfare and health-related infrastructure in Bihar. Makhana is a superfood in itself. The long-standing demand of creating a board for it has also been given importance by the Modi cabinet in this year's budget.

The party is also considering conducting several surveys before discussing any candidates or seat allocation. It is quite likely that the BJP will contest around 100 seats, and the JDU may be given 90-95 seats. The rest of the seats will be contested by other alliance partners.

Apart from JDU and BJP, other constituents of the alliance in the state and the Centre include Chirag Paswan's party LGP (Ram Vilas Party), Jitan Ram Manjhi's HAM Party and Upendra Kushwaha's party. However, the distribution of seats will happen only after the survey report comes and feedback is taken at the ground level. The biggest criterion for giving tickets to any party or person will be the possibility of winning.