For decades — arguably since Karpoori Thakur’s tenures as CM in the 1970s and with the rise, post-Mandal, of leaders like Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar — Bihar’s politics has been analysed through a series of tired truisms, rigid stereotypes and airtight binaries. The sheer scale of the NDA’s landslide victory, with Nitish Kumar now one of the longest-serving chief ministers in Indian history, demands that the received wisdom about “caste arithmetic” and “anti-incumbency”, for instance, be upgraded. The appeal of Narendra Modi and Nitish, partners in the victorious JD(U)-BJP alliance, was visible across regions and communities. For a diminished Mahagathbandhan in........

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