Pradhan to camp in Bihar, Amit Shah plans extended stays

Patna: With the election schedule expected to be announced anytime this week, the BJP is leading the election campaign for the NDA in Bihar and party leaders are in action on the ground.

The newly-appointed election in-charge, Dharmendra Pradhan will camp in Patna starting Saturday and will hold meetings with party workers and allies over the week. Pradhan has worked previously in Bihar and is known for having an ear on the ground. He also shares very good relations with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, and the party leaders feel that will help in easing out any seat negotiation obstacle.

Sources tell ET that the BJP plans to finalise the seat sharing by October 10 after the announcement of elections.

Internal negotiations are currently underway with LJP (RV) leader and Union minister Chirag Paswan. As per the party leaders, once the negotiation with Paswan is closed, it will be easier to accommodate smaller allies such as HAM (S) of Jitan Ram Manjhi and RLM of Upendra Kushwaha.


ET has learnt that Paswan is asking for a minimum of 30 assembly seats based on five Lok Sabha seats it won during 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Paswan seems to be a tough negotiator, and the BJP is willing to give him around 20 to 25 seats in normal circumstances. The BJP and JDU are completely in sync with each other when it comes to seat negotiations and both want to finish the discussion for smaller allies.

There is a consensus within the NDA that the seat allocation should be done among the allies based on their strengths and vote base in a particular region.

Union home minister Amit Shah is keeping a close watch on the campaign progress and the discussions with the allies in the state. Sources tell ET that it is after a long time that Shah is focusing so much on a state election. ET has learnt that Shah will stay for a longer period in the state instead of visiting for one or two days in a row.

With the deployment of the election team, it is quite clear that the party will focus on non-Yadav OBC and EBC vote banks in the state. In 2020, Bhupendra Yadav was the party in-charge while Union minister Nityanand Rai was leading the campaign.

In 2025, along with Pradhan, UP deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya is the co-in-charge and from the state, Bihar deputy CM Samrat Choudhary is leading the campaign. Both these leaders belong to the influential Kushwaha community.


It was the Kushwaha community voters that moved away from the NDA in 2024 in large numbers resulting in a defeat for the alliance on 10 seats. With two Kushwaha leaders at the top in the election team, the strategy is to consolidate the Kushwaha vote bank, which is roughly around 4.2% in the state.