JD(U)’s Neeraj Kumar tells Prabhat Khabar that Nitish Kumar’s legacy transcends party boundaries — and while MLAs are publicly demanding Nishant as Bihar’s next CM, the final call rests with the NDA legislature party
By AMIT KUMAR
Patna, March 28, 2026 — The question Bihar’s political class has been circling for months is now being spoken aloud — and from within JD (U) itself.
Speaking to Prabhat Khabar, senior JD(U) leader Neeraj Kumar said that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s legacy cannot be confined within party boundaries. “Nitish Kumar ji’s legacy is above the party — it belongs to the people,” Kumar said, in remarks that signal the succession conversation inside the NDA alliance has moved well past the stage of whispers.
The Nishant wave
On the ground, the pressure has a name: Nishant Kumar — Nitish Kumar’s son. Party workers have put up posters across towns demanding Nishant be named the next Chief Minister. Neeraj Kumar acknowledged the groundswell directly. “Many of our MLAs — young MLAs — are themselves making the demand that Nishant should be made CM. And they are our own MLAs, aren’t they?” he told Prabhat Khabar.
The framing was careful but unmistakable: the demand is not coming from outside the party, it is rising from within the legislature group itself.
What the BJP has signalled
The NDA’s position has been articulated by BJP national president Nitin Navin, who has stated publicly that the Nitish Model will continue in Bihar. Kumar read that endorsement as effective backing for continuity — and by extension, for the idea that whoever leads next must carry Nitish Kumar’s governing philosophy forward.
“There seems to be no problem,” Kumar said, referring to alignment within the alliance on the broad direction Bihar’s leadership should take.
Who decides — and how
Kumar was precise about where the formal authority lies. The decision on leadership will be taken in a legislature party meeting — not on social media, and not through poster campaigns. “The permission will be formed in our legislature. MLAs have the right to express their opinion — and so they should,” he said.
That distinction matters. In Bihar’s coalition arithmetic, enthusiasm on the streets and unity in the legislature party room are two different things. The posters are visible. The vote, when it comes, will be behind closed doors.
The succession in plain sight
What Neeraj Kumar’s remarks make clear is that JD(U) is no longer treating the post-Nitish question as hypothetical or premature. The legacy framing — positioning Nitish Kumar’s governance record as a living inheritance to be claimed and carried forward — is the political groundwork being laid for a transition that the party wants to control, shape, and present as continuity rather than rupture.
Whether that inheritance lands with Nishant Kumar or someone else, the NDA legislature party will decide. But the direction of travel, at least as Neeraj Kumar described it to Prabhat Khabar, is being set in public — one poster and one television interview at a time.
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