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Election time is prediction time for the cocky know-alls in our media. Some do it standing in studios against a backdrop of data, others speak to us from ground zero eating local delicacies and conversing with fellow eaters.

In the year 2024 most such folk labelled reliable and highly placed were of the opinion that the state of Bihar, under the coalition led by Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)), having discarded the INDIA guys and invited the BJP in, was about to win. Once again it would arise, awake and take flight under the ten-term CM sushasan babu, as Nitish was popularly known.

Nitish’s rise began when the Janata Party of Jayaprakash Narayan gathered and prepped a young crop of radical socialist leaders from backward communities to throw off the Congress. Lalu Prasad Yadav, Nitish, George Fernandes and Sharad Yadav then rose and shone both at the state and Union levels for long.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

But today that run appears as an aberrant episode in the political arena of 2026. Today they appear to be romantic resistance leaders who spoke vernaculars, wore mussed up kurta pyjamas and had dishevelled hair.

Suddenly parachuted into the vacuum created by the Congress’s defeat after the Emergency was suddenly lifted, they swore an oath at Rajghat to stay together and usher in real socialism and equality.

Soon it was obvious that the great ‘meeting of minds’ that the socialists’ godi media (yes, it was there) predicted aloud in vernacular papers was never really possible given the king-sized egos of older leaders. Soon, amoeba-like, the socialists began to divide and subdivide and formed new parties.

Of these, Nitish and Lalu played the longest innings as the tallest leaders to emerge from Bihar. While Lalu focussed his all on Bihar, Nitish was quick to gauge that any Bihari destiny must be compatible with Delhi’s current political scenario. More than a single party, the future would belong to coalitions that may occasionally cut across the ideological divide.

Lalu had a long innings and created his own brand in the political area in the north. Nitish bided his time to enter Bihar from Delhi and ruled for long. The stated goals of his JD(U) (co-founded in 2003 with Sharad Yadav and Fernandes merging their parties with Nitish’s) were promoting social justice and lifting up the totally marginalised and women.

But Nitish actually aimed to consolidate Kurmi power over the Yadav lobby, replacing them with the Most Backward groups and women. During those decades no institution was left untouched by the sticky fingers of the increasingly corrupt and venal casteism that these cynical manipulative tactics led to.

Today, as Nitish departs for Delhi as a member of the Rajya Sabha, Bihar still remains in the BIMARU category of backward states. It can boast of no major international airport or stadium, no expressways, no IT park and is placed near the bottom of national rankings for literacy, per capita income and employment rates.

After being an icon of socialism and secularism, what could have drawn Nitish and the present Bihar BJP leaders together? Was it an intuitive realisation that political actions needed to win a post-COVID election must dilute the secularism of yore and braid with the great myths of the state’s past: the Bihar of the Mauryan era and of Kalinga victory, of patronage that produced the Nalanda university.

Nitish had realised with hindsight that there are two kinds of socialist heroes: good but negative ones, like K.C. Tyagi and Prashant Kishor, and positive ones who won seats, like Kurmi leader Shravan Kumar, Sanjay Jha and Leshi Devi.

Also, even as Nitish’s career trajectory earned him the sobriquet of Paltu Chacha (‘uncle turncoat’), the new coalition has ensured a grand political launch for his hitherto untested son.

The ads plastered across the state before the 2024 elections glowingly repeated how public welfare schemes like MGNREGA, Education for All and Save the Girl child, along with empowerment of women, shall remain the big, audacious and hairy goals for the now “double engine” state.

Yes, the education mafia is still a powerful presence in Bihar and exam papers are still getting ‘leaked’, and even after the much-publicised creation of a national-level AIIMS in Darbhanga all that stands on the ground is an ornate gate, the public bought the argument.

But so far, Bihar’s relaunch has been an exercise in pouring old wine in attractive and expensive new bottles by clever copywriters in Delhi, whose bosses do not seem to care for politically federated states any more. For the BJP it is just another convenient alliance like the one crafted successfully in Odisha with the Biju Janata Dal or the Akalis in Punjab.

So no sooner than the results came, Nitish declared he was leaving for Delhi. That is the way the cookie crumbles for all BJP partners ultimately: Naveen Patnaik, the Badals, the Thackerays, the Pawars and Nitish.

Soon, bands of tireless, fast-talking young ad agency reps might be summoned again by a now-far more powerful coalition to devise a saleable relaunch of a double engine-driven Bihar. It is usually an expensive ritual behind closed doors in the best hotel in town where they give a ‘presentation’.

Despite their lack of hold on local languages, they can deliver hypnotic sermons in English to an audience of Hindi, Bhojpuri or Maithili-speaking clients in all high seriousness using mysterious abstract terms like ‘brand identity’, ‘brand value’, ‘market share’ and ‘core values’, just as the wily Brahmin priests once used terms like ‘swaha’, ‘swadha’ and ‘namo namah’!

The government’s representatives, happily soporific after the substantial ‘working lunch’ that must accompany each ritual in India, might be quite pleased to okay a linguistically enhanced and flattering image of themselves. Language does not matter here. Look at Prashant Kishor’s failed avatar as a brand maker-turned-peoples’ person.

The moral of the story is, the times they are a changing. In the age of AI and simultaneous translations, communication patterns are undergoing a sea change. Nitish, to his credit, never fancied himself as a weekly broadcaster of trite messages. The real Nitish was the master strategist-crusader who did not fight for himself or a revolution, but to stay on his throne. We should remember though that while there is no corruption in the man, there is corruption in the state that he leaves behind. Nitish’s successor, no matter who, inherits a heavy crown.

Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.

© The Wire