Bihar Assembly Election 2025: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA coalition is eyeing another term in Bihar and the one face the entire alliance seems to be backing is that of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. However, for the BJP, the real face even in Bihar is that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said Axis My India CMD Pradeep Gupta. Citing examples of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, the psephologist said there is “no face around him (PM Modi)”.

Gupta was responding to the question on how the BJP wants to go about in the upcoming Bihar elections as a BJP or NDA voter has a desire that the saffron party’s government should come to power at least once. Nitish Kumar has been serving as the CM of Bihar for the past 20 years, and this time too, many leaders have said he is only the face for NDA.

“Who is the leader in the BJP? Who is the face? There is a lot of confusion there,” ANI journalist asked Pradeep Gupta. 

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‘There is only one face…’

Responding to the question of BJP face in the battle of Bihar, Gupta said the saffron party has only one face. “There is only one face and that is Narendra Modi,” he said.

“Even in Bihar, Narendra Modi is everywhere. As far as the BJP is concerned, there is no face around him. When he won Rajasthan, he won Chhattisgarh…There was no one in Chhattisgarh when the Congress government was in power,” the Axis My India CMD added to back his point. 

He mentioned Raman Singh was not the face in Chhattisgarh, adding that there was the Congress government of Bhupendra Bagel and the BJP had no face in front of him. “And it was strong. Despite that, the BJP fought without a face, which no one was saying that BJP will win,” he said.

In Madhya Pradesh, Gupta said, one can say that Shivraj Singh Chauhan was the Chief Minister and he was the face the BJP backed their campaign on. However, Chouhan was not declared the CM face of the party.

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Is ‘Brand Modi’ being overused? Gupta responds

When asked if the “brand Modi” is being overused for the last 12-13 years, both at regional and national levels, Gupta said that the BJP openly calls the Prime Minister their “trump card”.

On the voting pattern, he said the state of Bihar has various points of discussion. Caste is one and the number of parties are second. “Bihar is a state where it is difficult to analyse even after the voting is done… The first analysis parameter is the extent of anti-incumbency. In Bihar, it is very different, but the only common denominator is Nitish Kumar, who has been there for 20 years… The question is – What is the alternative?…” he asked. 

For the last 20-30 years, Bihar has been the only state to undergo a caste census, he said, adding that the Muslim-Yadav equation is almost 32%. “Thus, RJD has not lost its presence despite being in opposition for a long time… Last time RJD seemed to win, but had LJP contested along with NDA, like now, NDA would have secured 138 seats…”

Gupta emphasised that no matter what, caste will play a key role in Bihar elections. “What is the psychology of the voter?What is the process of giving a vote that you are choosing your representative? Who is the representative? Who understands your hopes, desires, expectations, understands your culture, understands your language, understands your needs.”

“Is he your representative? In reality, he is not a representative. So if he is of my caste, I myself think about it,” the psephologist noted.