4 min readMar 7, 2026 07:00 AM IST
First published on: Mar 7, 2026 at 06:45 AM IST
Nitish Kumar’s exit from Bihar’s politics has left many wondering about what is in store for the state, in which political discourse had revolved around him for the last two decades. While his absence will definitely be felt for some time to come, I see five key areas in which his legacy of successes, flops, and flip-flops will have significant implications.
First, on maintaining communal harmony, Nitish Kumar sought to carry forward the legacy of his predecessor, Lalu Prasad, who continues to be regarded —even by his critics — as a symbol of resistance to communal polarisation. Despite being in coalition with the Bharatiya
Janata Party for most of his tenure as chief minister, Nitish Kumar successfully contained the Hindutva agenda and acted as a buffer between the secular sections of the Opposition and the BJP. After the 2020 elections, a weak Nitish Kumar was less successful in controlling the BJP’s politics of polarisation. The last five years have witnessed several cases of hate crimes, including communal riots and lynchings. A question that stares the state in the face in his absence is whether Bihar will fare worse than it did under Nitish Kumar.
Second, he carried forward and extended Lalu Prasad’s “social justice agenda”. Lalu Prasad is credited with sparking social churn in Bihar politics, as Other Backward Classes (OBCs), especially the Yadavs, challenged the hierarchies and dominance of the upper castes. Nitish Kumar must be credited for taking the agenda to the pachpanias, as the extremely backward castes (EBCs) are often called because of their large numbers and heterogeneity. Without Nitish Kumar and in the absence of any prominent leadership from these communities, EBCs will have genuine apprehensions about their well-being.
Third, Nitish Kumar is credited with bringing Bihar back from the brink of governance collapse during the latter half of the Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) rule. The dramatic improvement in terms of the “rule of law” earned him the badge of “sushasan babu”. However, of late, the state’s law-and-order situation has been declining. While people’s discontent with their economic condition could be one reason, Nitish Kumar’s flip-flops and hobnobbing with leaders notorious for criminal activities have also contributed to this state of affairs. The new leadership will have to carve out its own path to improve law and order.
Fourth, Nitish Kumar brought “development” to the centre stage in Bihar. His carefully crafted caste-community “coalition of extremes” was not articulated in the usual vocabulary of caste and community. However, his vision for development has often been criticised for being narrowly focused on sadak, pul, bijli aur building (roads, bridges, electricity, and construction), however important they might be in an infrastructure-deficient state like Bihar.
Despite this rhetoric of development, Bihar’s nominal per capita annual income of $878 in 2024 places it in the league of African nations such as Sierra Leone and Liberia. More than two-thirds of the state’s labour force is self-employed. Regular wage or salaried workers constitute only seven per cent of the labour force. Self-employed workers earn even less than those engaged in casual work, so this is unlikely to be a preferred choice of employment. Women’s labour force participation is abysmally low at 21 per cent, with more than 84 per cent engaged in agriculture.
The decline in all levels of education and healthcare facilities completes the dismal picture of development in the state. It is not without reason that Nitish Kumar needed to dole out cash assistance of Rs 10,000 to more than 1.61 crore women in the state on the eve of the last assembly elections. Nitish Kumar’s exit may open possibilities for pursuing a genuine development agenda.
Lastly, Nitish Kumar built a regional party, the Janata Dal (United), which never allowed the BJP to form a government on its own. The future of the party now hangs in the balance. The era of one-party dominance in Bihar may lead to political churn in a state that’s far too diverse to be contained by a single ideological dispensation.
The writer is former professor and chairperson of the Patna Centre of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
