December 01, 2025

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THE NIMO KNOCKOUT

ON November 20, as Nitish Kumar, the 74-yearold patriarch of the Janata Dal (United), walked up to take oath as the chief minister of Bihar for a record tenth time, he stepped into a tenure laden both with promise and the weight of expectation. He had decimated not just a younger, energetic opponent in Tejashwi Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), but also defeated any doubts about his mental and political astuteness, along with all insinuations of anti-incumbency. His party's partnership with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a set of other fellow travellers with smaller but strategically disparate bases had led the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to a landslide 202 out of 243 seats. Now comes the task of living up to the mandateThe vehicle to accomplish it looks, at first glance, not too different from the old one. There was a time, not too long ago, when a touch of indeterminacy attached to Nitish's continuation as CM. But not only is he back at the helm, the two BJP deputy CMs--Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha--have been retained too. The new cabinet comprises nine ministers from the JD(U), 14 from the BJP, two from Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party and one each from Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular (HAMS) and Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM). Besides the usual quantum of new faces (nine) and discards (12), it was a fairly faithful reflection of the balance, coordination and cohesion seen during the campaign where, despite potential for discord, all cogs in the wheel moved as one. Will it carry forward into governance as well? A lot will hinge on how Nitish manages the old contradictions that will bleed into this new nuptial pact. He retained his crown partly because it was something of a fait accompli after the Opposition accused the BJP

INSIDE NDA WAR ROOM

It was past midnight, days before the second phase of polling in Bihar, and Patna was all but asleep. At Hotel Maurya, though, a heavily curtained suite on the upper floors was showing signs of hectic activity. On a bare sofa, Union home minister Amit Shah was deep in the middle of another review. No papers, no courtesies, only questions: "Has every booth committee received the poll material? Why are the motorcycle rally flags so small? Which villages missed door-to-door campaigning today?" Every meeting followed the same routine: boxes ticked, gaps identified, progress debated, and execution details for the next 24 hours fine-tuned to the last measurable actionIt was on the back of such careful micromanage- ment that the astonishingly successful campaign for Bihar was stitched together. The vaunted poll machinery of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) outdid itself, with the architects being the omnipresent Shah, Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan and national secretary Vinod Tawde. Pradhan was tasked with organisational consolidation and ground-team mobilisation, Tawde with messaging and social engineeringThe seat-sharing arrangements of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had given the BJP 101 seats, the same as the Janata Dal (United), for the first time, a reflection of how the saffron party's involvement extended far beyond its own quota. Right from the start, alliance coordination was key. For the JD(U), working president Sanjay Jha, who had longstanding ties with both Tawde and Pradhan, was the go-to person. Shah's junior minister, Nityanand Rai, who has known the Paswan family for ages, was the