Overview

• Chirag Paswan announced that the NDA remains united in Bihar and that Nitish Kumar will take oath again as chief minister following the assembly elections.
• Arun Bharti emphasized that the LJP (Ram Vilas) will stay within the NDA and pursue seat-sharing talks with BJP and JD(U) under their coalition agreement.
• Paswan’s public endorsement comes days after he had called Bihar’s law-and-order situation “collapsed” following a gang rape in Gaya, marking a rare rebuke of the state government.
• RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and other opposition figures seized on Paswan’s earlier criticism to accuse the NDA government of operating with one engine of crime and another of corruption.
• Claims of a new Paswan-Prashant Kishor alliance have been overshadowed by the LJP (RV)’s formal reaffirmation of support for Nitish Kumar’s leadership ahead of the polls.