Post-Nitish Kumar, how Upendra Kushwaha could be BJP's Luv-Kush insurance

Upendra Kushwaha is emerging as the BJP's indispensable independent OBC ally and the strongest OBC pole in Bihar politicsThe Bankipur assembly by-election has exposed an uncomfortable limitation of the BJP and perhaps also of Samrat Choudhary’s leadership barely months after he became the party’s first chief minister of Bihar.A Kushwaha (Koeri) community leader himself, Choudhary was expected to help the BJP consolidate the Luv-Kush (Kurmi-Koeri) social constituency that had underpinned former chief minister Nitish Kumar’s political success. Instead, the BJP suffered a shock defeat in a seat it had held for decades, and one represented by its national president Nitin Nabin.The verdict has revived a question the BJP may have hoped Choudhary’s elevation to chief ministership had settled. With Nitish no longer politically active and the transition from his long stewardship to Choudhary’s leadership still incomplete, there lies an unmistakable gap between the ruling NDA’s ambitions in Bihar and the realities on the ground.Who, then, can hold together the Luv-Kush equation for the alliance? The answer could be Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) supremo Upendra Kushwaha, the veteran politician who has retained an independent identity, a separate organisation and an enduring claim over a constituency the BJP cannot afford to lose. The paradox is striking: the BJP may have a Koeri chief minister, yet it needs to bank upon Upendra. That is not merely coalition management but an acknowledgement that political representation and social ownership are not always the same thing.The clearest evidence of Kushwaha’s strengthening relevance came even before the Bankipur result. In June, when the NDA secured nine of the 10 vacant seats in the Bihar legislative council, his son Deepak Prakash, a minister in the Choudhary cabinet, was not among those accommodated.As Deepak wasn’t a member of either House, he needed legislative membership to continue in the cabinet. On July 31, a day after polling in Bankipur, BJP MLC Devesh Kumar resigned, creating the vacancy through which Deepak was subsequently nominated to the legislative council to be able to continue in the cabinet.Even with an overwhelming NDA majority, the ruling alliance eventually made room for the son of a leader whose own party remains outside the BJP. This was not routine alliance housekeeping. It underlines a realisation of the growing value of Kushwaha to the NDA and the BJP.The larger vacuumThe more consequential development is the weakening of the two political poles that have dominated Bihar for decades. Lalu Prasad Yadav’s legacy remains the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) anchor, but son Tejashwi Yadav has yet to demonstrate that he can expand the party’s formidable Muslim-Yadav base into a broader cross-community coalition that wins elections.Nitish, meanwhile, has moved to the Rajya Sabha, taking with him much of the political energy he brought to the NDA. Choudhary is yet to inherit his predecessor’s stature. The result is an unusual political vacuum—one in which Lalu’s era is receding, Nitish’s active political role is ending, Tejashwi has yet to dominate the larger Opposition space, and Choudhary has yet to establish Nitish’s wider OBC appeal. It is in this vacuum that Kushwaha could become far more consequential than his present legislative strength suggests.Choudhary has the office and the BJP’s organisation behind him. Kushwaha has something different: nearly three decades of political experience, an independent political identity and a history of committed support base in the Koeri constituency. In the unsettled politics of post-Nitish Bihar, that could make Kushwaha the BJP’s independent insurance policy for the Luv-Kush vote—and potentially a strong OBC pole, which the party’s present arrangement fails to consolidate.The numbers explain it. Bihar’s caste survey puts the Koeri community at 4.21 per cent of the state’s population and Kurmis at 2.87 per cent. Together, they account for just over 7 per cent. Yadavs, at 14.26 per cent, remain the state’s largest caste group.The political importance of the Kurmi-Koeri bloc lies in its historic role in the social coalition that Nitish built against the RJD’s Muslim-Yadav dominance. The Luv-Kush formulation gave Nitish a non-Yadav OBC core and helped him construct a much broader coalition of Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs), women and sections of Dalits.That architecture survived because Nitish turned a relatively modest caste base into the nucleus of a governing coalition. Now, the architect has moved away from the centre of the stage. The question: who inherits the political space he left behind?Kushwaha may have the stature to fill the gap created by Nitish’s exit. He has spent nearly three decades navigating Bihar’s shifting political landscape. He has been associated with the Samata Party and Janata Dal (United), served as a Union minister, severed ties with Nitish, formed his own political organisations, returned to the NDA and repeatedly renegotiated his place within the larger coalition. His political career has been anything but linear. That, paradoxically, may now be his greatest asset.Kushwaha has remained within the NDA without becoming a BJP politician. In June, he ruled out a merger of his RLM with the BJP while reaffirming that the party remained a strong NDA constituent. He can therefore function as a bridge between the BJP and voters who may support the alliance without fully identifying with the BJP.Could he become ‘Nitish 2.0’?Kushwaha’s party may not have the legislative strength of Nitish’s JD(U). But political succession does not begin with numbers. It begins with a vacuum. Nitish’s greatest political achievement was creating a durable non-Yadav OBC political pole around the Luv-Kush identity and expanding it into a broader governing coalition. Kushwaha has one advantage: independence and active political engagement in the state.He can negotiate with the BJP without being in the BJP. He can speak to the Koeri constituency without appearing to do so merely as an office-holder. He can retain an independent political organisation without being responsible for running the state government. That makes ‘Nitish 2.0’ a provocative possibility—not because Kushwaha is already another Nitish but because Bihar may once again be looking for an independent OBC leader capable of standing between the major political formations.After the Bankipur result, there is a perception that the BJP’s own Koeri leadership has yet to fully consolidate the community. The BJP may therefore need Upendra as an insurance policy. That is why he could eventually become something more than another NDA ally—perhaps the BJP’s indispensable independent OBC ally.The big pictureThe question is whether Bihar’s changing political architecture is creating the conditions in which a leader with an independent OBC identity, a separate organisation and three decades of political experience can once again become indispensable to the state’s governing coalition. That possibility is real because Kushwaha occupies an unusual position in this scenario.In a Bihar that no longer has figures such as Sushil Kumar Modi or Ram Vilas Paswan, while both Lalu and Nitish appear to have receded from the frontline, Kushwaha possesses a stature and political experience unmatched by most other OBC leaders in the state. His independent political identity, long association with Luv-Kush politics and ability to negotiate across political formations give him a relevance that extends well beyond his present electoral strength.The question for Bihar now is not whether Kushwaha can inherit enough of Nitish’s political legacy to become ‘Nitish Kumar 2.0’, but how long it will take. And it may only be a matter of time before the BJP, having finally captured Bihar in its own right, finds its interests increasingly aligned with Kushwaha, who could help secure the very Luv-Kush constituency on which the state’s new political order will depend.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- EndsPublished By: Yashwardhan SinghPublished On: Aug 12, 2026 19:14 IST