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'Jodi hit ho gayi': Bihar BJP celebrates win with Modi-Nitish photo
Bihar assembly election results 2025: State BJP celebrates the duo, promises continued development works in the state
The Bihar unit of the BJP posted a photo of PM Narendra Modi and CM Nitish Kumar of the JD(U) together after the NDA secured a massive mandate to continue in power in the state.
It came with a Bhojpuri caption that could be roughly translated to: “Modi-Nitish partnership a hit, Bihar development on repeat.”
Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and Modi's BJP were ahead on 82 and 95 seats, as of 3 pm, with the NDA as a whole leading in over 200 of the 243 assembly segments.
The BJP's social media post placing him next to the PM was one of the many recent moves that showed Nitish remains the boss.
This, because Nitish Kumar's coronation as chief minister in 2020 had come even when his party JD(U) managed to win only 43 seats, largely because of sabotage by Chirag Paswan's LJP; so it was the BJP which was the biggest constituent of the NDA in the Bihar assembly.
The BJP is likely to remain the largest partner this time too, but Nitish's JD(U) has improved its strike rate by a lot, and may almost double its 2020 tally.
Nitish has had to offer more room to the BJP in the alliance of late.
The number of seats contested by the JD(U) and the BJP was 141 and 102 in 2010, then adjusted to 115 and 110 in 2020, and was 101 each in the 2025 election.
Observers had said that unless the JD(U) performs exceptionally well, if not better than the BJP, its control over power in Bihar could very well be ceremonial rather than the dominance that Nitish enjoyed in the past.
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. The BJP had two deputy chief ministers in the incumbent regime. It has retained the deputy chief minister’s position for more than 14 years starting with Sushil Modi in 2005.
But 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. Ground reports indicate that a large section of the NDA’s voters, particularly the extremely backward classes and women voted for Nitish Kumar's image over other considerations.
