BJP shuffle: In Bihar, party bets on known Nitish baiter, Kushwaha face for president

Secondly, Choudhary is one of the few BJP leaders who have regularly taken on Nitish Kumar. In the past, he has often criticised Nitish on “administrative lapses”, even when his party, the BJP, was part of the ruling alliance. Choudhary also used to back ideological positions of the BJP even at expense of inviting the wrath of its then ally, the JD(U).

But Choudhary making it to the top organisational position in the state unit was not without hiccups. The BJP’s central leadership was hard put to redact Choudhary’s “outsider” tag, given that in the past, he was part of both the RJD and the JD(U), before he joined the BJP in 2017.

Choudhary was also a tough choice as he is the son of former Tarapur MLA Shakuni Choudhary, who had been with the RJD for a long time and was a strong anti-BJP voice. Nevertheless, he is rumoured to have been preferred over Digha (Patna) MLA Sanjeev Chourasia, former minister Janak Ram and senior leader Prem Ranjan Patel. In the end, he seems to have won the race because of the BJP’s focus on splitting Kushwaha votes.

Choudhary, whose father Shakuni represented Tarapur Assembly segment several times, started his political innings with the Samata Party. He later joined the RJD and in May, 1999, became a minister in Rabri Devi’s government. He again won from Parbatta (Khagaria) in 2000 as an RJD nominee.

He switched to the JD(U) in 2014 and was later made an MLC and minister. After he switched to the BJP in 2017, the party nurtured him as its leading Kushwaha face. As the Tarapur seat went to then ally JD(U), Choudhary was made an MLC in 2020, and given the important Panchayati Raj portfolio.

He soon turned into a frontline BJP critic of Nitish and attracted attention of the party’s brass, who rewarded him by making him the LoP in the Legislative Council.

Choudhary’s political stock has been rising since Nitish walked out of the NDA alliance last August. The Kushwaha votes are about 6 per cent of the state’s population.

An elated Choudhary told The Indian Express: “My top priority will be to further strengthen the organisation and spread our reach among the people. Our prime goal is to win maximum seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha, and to form a BJP government in Bihar after the 2025 Assembly polls.”

Asked about his line of attack on the Opposition, Choudhary said: “We will talk about failures of the [Mahagathbandhan] government in law and order, and why Nitish Kumar could not do anything beyond the bare basics.” He said the party would also attack Nitish’s “opportunistic” alliance with the RJD, whose top leaders “either stand convicted in corruption cases or are facing corruption charges”.