Two Janata Parivar offshoots, the Janata Dal United, or JD(U), in Bihar and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha, are at a crossroads. Their leaders—the veterans Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik—are receding into political irrelevance, but no second-rung leaders have emerged to take their place.

Age is not on the side of either: Nitish is 75 and Patnaik is 79. While the JD(U) remains in power in Bihar, with Nitish having stepped down as Chief Minister to make way for the BJP’s Samrat Choudhary, the BJD, after ruling Odisha for 24 years, now finds itself in the opposition following its crushing defeat in both the parliamentary and State Assembly elections in 2024..

Nitish has moved to the Centre through the Rajya Sabha route. But Patnaik has stayed back in the State, and for two years, he has been trying to galvanise a demoralised, faction-ridden party. The BJD’s tally was reduced to a mere 51 seats in Odisha’s 147-member Assembly in 2024, and Patnaik’s own victory margin shrank significantly in his stronghold of Hinjili in 2024; he lost decisively in the other seat that he contested, Kantabanji.

Subsequent setbacks in byelections and organisational problems have reinforced the impression that he is losing his appeal among voters and command over his cadres.

Nitish, on the other hand, powered the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to victory in the 2025 Bihar Assembly election and was at the helm of the government for nearly five months afterwards, before stepping down as Chief Minister. Notwithstanding the stark difference between how the two parties performed in the last Assembly election, the challenges that the two leaders now face are remarkably similar.

JD(U) pins hopes on Nitish Kumar’s son

IIn the JD(U)’s case, Nitish has always been the fulcrum, notwithstanding the presence of veterans like George Fernandes and Sharad Yadav. Patnaik, on the other hand, inherited the party as the son of the legendary Biju Patnaik. He, however, quickly proved his mettle. A JD(U) minus Nitish or a BJD minus Patnaik would have been unthinkable a few years ago, but now that possibility stares both parties in the face.

The JD(U) seems to be pinning its hopes on Nitish’s son, Nishant, a political greenhorn. Nishant made his political foray after much speculation and suspense but made it to the ministry in a matter of months: he is now Bihar’s Health Minister. Nitish’s final months in government were mired in controversy over questions about his mental faculties and ability to execute his official responsibilities. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) kept claiming that age had made him unfit for chief ministership. Curiously enough, RJD leaders, including Rabri Devi and Tejashwi Yadav, appeared keen on Nishant joining the JD(U) and even alleged that some party leaders were against it because they feared that Nishant’s rise could undermine their political careers.

But when Nishant finally took the plunge, he soon betrayed his inexperience, blurting out comments on social media that called into question his political acumen. His late entry into politics has only accentuated these shortcomings.

The JD(U) is now reportedly trying, through a group of legislators informally dubbed as Team Nishant, to train him in public communication, administrative tasks, and political etiquette.

But Nitish’s shoes are not easy to fill. Even other senior leaders such as Lalan Singh, Vijay Kumar Choudhary, Ashok Chudhary, and Sanjay Kumar Jha cannot match his popularity. The party needs a leader who can take along privileged-caste voters as well as a significant section of Mahadalit and Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs), something that Nitish had done extremely well. In short, the JD(U) needs to hold on to Nitish’s legacy.

Nishant, who is aware of the expectations, invokes his father’s name whenever he talks about doing something for the State. For instance, after meeting his ministerial colleague Madan Sahni (in charge of the Prohibition, Excise and Registration Department) on May 13, he posted on X: “In line with Father’s vision, the Health Department is working earnestly to ensure that everyone in the State benefits from health services. Shri Madan Sahni Ji also appeared deeply committed to his departmental responsibilities. Together, we will bring Father’s resolutions to fruition on the ground.”

The Sadbhav Yatra that Nishant undertook in May was also a conscious attempt to lay claim to his father’s legacy of “yatra” politics aimed at connecting with the masses. It was not a coincidence that he started the yatra in Bagaha in West Champaran district, following Nitish’s long-held tradition of launching all political yatras from the Champaran region.

The RJD, which senses the JD(U)’s vulnerability following Nitish’s retreat from State politics, has started aggressively wooing the Mahadalits and the EBCs. It is now trying to widen its MY (Muslim-Yadav) base to include other backward castes. The BJP is also trying to widen its reach among Other Backward Classes and Dalits.

Ironically, the JD(U)’s own history of alternating between the BJP and the RJD as allies has made both parties acceptable to its supporters. Political analysts believe that Nitish’s return to the NDA in 2017 was in part prompted by the realisation that his EBC support base was moving towards the BJP. Now, with Nitish out of the reckoning, whether the JD(U) can hold on to this support base while it stays in alliance with the BJP remains the big question. The possibility that a substantial section of JD(U) voters may shift their loyalty to these two cadre-based parties cannot be ruled out. If this happens, it will mark a new turn in Bihar politics with leaders like Prashant Kishor likely to use the opportunity to establish themselves firmly in the State.

The BJD’s challenges are more difficult

In Odisha, the BJD’s challenges are more difficult: an ageing leader, sharp internal divisions, and a resurgent BJP in power. Several leaders who were once considered to constitute the second rung of leadership have either resigned or been forced to leave the party. Some of them joined the BJP, one of the factors believed to be responsible for the saffron party’s victory.

Among the leaders who left the BJD are Baijayant Jaya Panda, Damodar Rout (who passed away in 2024), Pradeep Panigrahy, Prafulla Kumar Mallik, N. Bhaskar Rao, and Lal Bihari Himirika; some of them joined the BJP.

One former BJD leader, now with the BJP, spoke of how the BJD was very much a one-man show with Patnaik at the centre. While this style of functioning ensured organisational discipline, it came at the cost of not developing an internal leadership pipeline. The heavy price that the party paid for this in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections of 2024 has weakened Patnaik’s sway over the party.  

The Pandian factor

Then there was the Pandian factor. V.K. Pandian, Patnaik’s close aide and once perceived as his political heir, resigned from the BJD and quit politics after the party’s disastrous performance in 2024. But the damage was already done. With the old guard unhappy with the clout that he enjoyed in the party, deep fissures had opened, triggering resignations that strengthened the BJP’s position.

When Pandian quit, he left behind a vacuum with no clear succession structure. The lack of command and control in the party was evident as early as 2025 when eight BJD MLAs brazenly cross-voted during the Rajya Sabha election, handing the BJP-backed candidate a victory and publicly humiliating the party leadership. Such indiscipline and defiance would have been unthinkable during Patnaik’s peak years.

On the contentious Waqf Bill, too, the discord between BJD MPs voting in the Rajya Sabha was evident. While Sasmit Patra supported the Bill, Muzibulla Khan opposed it. With Debashish Samantaray abstaining from voting, the BJP benefited. 

Just as the JD(U) facilitated the BJP’s rise in Bihar, the BJD did so in Odisha. Founded in 1997 as a regional force opposing the Congress, the BJD soon found it an easy option to join the NDA and, in alliance with the BJP, formed a government in the State in 2000. The alliance fell through in 2009, after which the BJD joined the Third Front but left in 2014.

Since then, the BJD has followed a policy of equidistance from both the BJP and the Congress, but it bailed out the Modi government in the Rajya Sabha during the passage of crucial Bills. With BJD members voting on contentious Bills according to their “conscience”, BJD supporters were perhaps left somewhat baffled about their own political choices.

In the recent Rajya Sabha election, the BJD received the Congress party’s support but was defeated by the BJP’s deft political manoeuvring. Staging a comeback now will be a tall order for the BJD, weakened as it is by defections of grassroots leaders and former Ministers. The BJP, which has the Centre’s backing, is on a strong wicket.

If the BJD’s crisis was precipitated by the 2024 electoral defeat, the JD(U)’s predicament stems from prolonged dependence on a single leader and its failure to build a cadre base. In a way, both the BJD and the JD(U) face strikingly similar structural challenges stemming from an overcentralised party hierarchy blocking the emergence of an able second-rung leadership.

Era of regional stalwarts may be over

The era of regional stalwarts who ran their parties on the strength of their personal charisma appears to be coming to an end. It would not be an exaggeration to say that their parties are at risk of gradual disintegration. The list of regional parties that failed to outlast their founders is already quite long.

The political analyst Rasheed Kidwai said: “The quest for longevity in public life often leads to bizarre situations harming leaders’ reputation and legacy. Nitish will go down in history not as much as the most successful and longest-serving Chief Minister of Bihar as for his inability to retain his profile as a regional satrap.

“Nitish frittered away his spectacular success in the Bihar Assembly polls of 2025 for some inexplicable reason, resigning and moving to the Rajya Sabha without gaining any political weightage or a suitable post. The same is true for Patnaik, whose reliance on a bureaucrat proved costly for him and the entire BJD. His inability to join either the NDA or the INDIA alliance left him without any role or cause. The irrelevance of Nitish and Patnaik will continue to haunt not only the JD(U) and the BJD, ultimately leading to their extinction, but also contemporary historians because there is no plausible explanation or rationale for it.”

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