General
After being written off by rivals and pundits, Nitish Kumar has reasserted his dominance in Bihar. His welfare politics and women-centric outreach trumped caste arithmetic again, even as the BJP quietly prepares for a post-Nitish future
On the day the Bihar election schedule was announced, a cocky Tejashwi Yadav, whose Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is about to be wiped out, asserted that the party was over for Nitish Kumar, the chief minister, and his Janata Dal (United) or JD(U), because the electorate sorely wanted a regime change.
Nitish didn’t answer Tejashwi’s claim. Indeed, his silence added to the interminable speculation over the state of his health, suggesting that he was about to walk into oblivion after the Assembly polls.