'Removing Nitish Kumar prematurely risks unsettling both the alliance balance and parts of the social coalition that delivered this victory.'
"A change of chief minister becomes plausible only if the BJP pulls far ahead of the JD-U in a future election, or if a carefully managed transition can be choreographed with Nitish's consent," says Vignesh Karthik KR.
Dr Karthik is a postdoctoral research affiliate of Indian and Indonesian politics at The Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, and a research affiliate at King's India Institute, King's College London.
"Continuity with Nitish, even in a more ceremonial form later, remains the lower-risk option for the BJP," Dr Karthik tells Rediff's Archana Masih on the day Nitish Kumar takes the oath for a 10th time as Bihar chief minister.
As an election researcher and analyst who has been studying the state what big surprises did the Bihar verdict hold for you?
Two things stood out.
First, the scale and clarity of the mandate for the NDA, despite a very poor development record and visible anger in sections of the electorate.
This was not a 'wave' election, but the result was sweeping. It showed how far organisational and social complementarity between the BJP and JD-U, plus Nitish's administrative network and women/EBC base, can compensate for structural underdevelopment.
Second, the extent of the opposition's collapse.
The RJD did not just underperform; it fell back to numbers comparable with the late 2000s, when Nitish was at his peak.
The Opposition lost not because the NDA surged unexpectedly, but because the Mahagathbandhan collapsed under the weight of its own choices: A Yadav-heavy ticket, limited EBC outreach, a hollowed-out Congress, and fragmented minority voting. A competitive election became lopsided by design.
The scale of the victory has been attributed to women voting overwhelmingly for Nitish Kumar, especially for the Rs 10,000 cash disbursed. Have incumbent governments found a way to beat anti-incumbency by such schemes? Is anti-incumbency no longer a factor?
Targeted transfers to women did matter, but not as a simple 'cash-for-vote' mechanism. They worked because they were layered on top of a longer history of Nitish-centric welfare; cycles, scholarships, reservations in panchayats, liquor prohibition framed as women's safety that had already created a relationship of trust.
The Rs 10,000 scheme reinforced an existing moral economy rather than creating it from scratch.
Across states, we are seeing incumbents trying to convert governance into a direct, personalised relationship via Direct Bank Transfer-led welfare architectures. That can blunt anti-incumbency when three conditions hold: the state can finance it, delivery is reasonably reliable, and there is no compelling alternative leadership on offer.
But welfare is not a magic shield. Andhra Pradesh and Odisha remind us that you can still lose despite heavy spending if credibility erodes or rival coalitions look more viable.
So yes, there is a structural tilt towards incumbents in an era of stable welfare regimes, but anti-incumbency has not disappeared. It is becoming more conditional: voters are willing to punish, but only when they are confident someone else can protect what they already receive.
Is welfarism trumping development, particularly in state elections? What larger impact is this going to have - not only on fiscal health of the states, but on Indian politics?
Bihar illustrates a 'low-level equilibrium'. You have some of the country's worst outcomes on per capita consumption, wages, health, and higher education, yet an incumbent can still win decisively by offering a floor of welfare, especially to women and marginalised castes, without structurally transforming the economy.
Welfare here compensates for the absence of broad-based growth; it does not build a pathway out of it. During my fieldwork, a senior journalist in Delhi put it bluntly: When social rupture is rife, money helps grease hands for shakes.
There was a time when the legacy of Karpoori Thakur, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan tilted the balance toward a politics of dignity before a politics of development.
Over the years, development itself has been replaced with welfare, and the politics of dignity is being hollowed out in tandem due to a lack of a horizontal plebeian/ Dalit-Bahujan vision.
The symbolic, relational work that once stitched together Bihar's social coalitions has thinned, even as direct transfers have thickened.
For state finances, this produces a long-term squeeze. Governments prioritise highly visible, recurring cash or in-kind schemes over less visible but transformative investments in schooling quality, public health systems, or job-creating infrastructure.
Over time, this narrows fiscal space and locks states into high-commitment, low-return spending portfolios.
Such schemes are also politically sustainable only because India has an arbitrary and centralised tax system that disproportionately punishes the poor through regressive indirect taxation.
The Centre's consolidated fiscal power allows ruling coalitions in Delhi to divert or target funds in ways that soften the fiscal constraints facing a state like Bihar, despite low growth. Welfare can therefore expand even as the developmental base remains shallow.
The political danger is that electoral competition becomes a race over the intensity of welfare rather than a contest over models of development. Once that happens, it becomes extremely difficult to hold a serious conversation about structural change.
The system then finds a perverse balance: deep underdevelopment can coexist with stable incumbencies because welfare acts as a compensatory mechanism rather than a developmental springboard.
There was speculation about Nitish Kumar's relevance had the JD-U not performed well -- but with Nitish Kumar emerging as the biggest hero of the election, how has the verdict boosted his political position? How long is he likely to remain CM before the BJP stakes its claim?
This result reaffirms that Nitish remains the pivot of Bihar's governing arrangement. The BJP's campaign, welfare branding and booth-level effort all leaned heavily on his sushasan image, especially among EBCs, Mahadalits and women.
Far from being redundant, he has been reconfirmed as the legitimising face of a coalition that the BJP finances and organises but cannot yet front in Bihar without cost.
Part of Nitish's durability also lies in a deeper structural fact: Unlike leaders such as Lalu Prasad Yadav, Karpoori Thakur or Ram Vilas Paswan, Nitish does not fundamentally challenge entrenched social hierarchies.
On a good day, his governance model subtly exacerbates existing hierarchies; on a bad day, it maintains the stalemate. This makes him a 'safe' custodian of the status quo for dominant social blocs while still retaining credibility among sections that benefit from his incremental welfare architecture where the beneficiaries' expectations are managed and moderated.
That equilibrium is precisely what allows him to endure.
The BJP's long-term incentives remain unchanged: Whenever seat arithmetic permits, it will want its own chief minister. But Bihar is not like some smaller regional allies the BJP has sidelined elsewhere.
Nitish presides over a deeply entrenched administrative network and a political common sense that still sees him as the acceptable anchor of power. Removing him prematurely risks unsettling both the alliance balance and parts of the social coalition that delivered this victory.
So, his position is strengthened in the short to medium term. A change of chief minister becomes plausible only if the BJP pulls far ahead of the JD-U in a future election, or if a carefully managed transition can be choreographed with Nitish's consent.
Until then, continuity with him, even in a more ceremonial form later, remains the lower-risk option for the BJP.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff