With the Janata Dal(U) walking out of the National Democratic Alliance, the BJP has to consider not just projecting a chief ministerial face for the 2025 Assembly election in Bihar but also undertake a search for a new State unit chief, preferably belonging to the Extremely Backward Classes (EBC).
Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s disclosure in Bihar a couple of weeks ago that the BJP would be projecting a chief ministerial candidate was the first signal that the party was thinking deep and hard on just how to counter the formidable alliance of the Janata Dal(U) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and its caste arithmetic.
“Right off the bat, you must understand that any candidate, either for Chief Minister or the State unit president [soon to be appointed], will not be an upper caste,” said a senior Bihar BJP leader.
