Patna: Union home minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Amit Shah reached Patna on Wednesday night to begin preparations for the 2025 Bihar assembly elections. Greeted at the airport by deputy chief minister Samrat Chaudhary and other party leaders, Shah headed straight to a private hotel, where he held informal discussions with state BJP figures.
On Thursday, Shah will travel to Dehri in Rohtas district in the morning and to Begusarai in the afternoon, where he will meet party MPs, MLAs, district presidents and workers from 20 districts. The BJP leader is expected to outline the party’s election strategy and provide what state leaders described as the “mantra for victory”.
In Dehri, his meeting will be held at the E. Lallan Singh Sports Club in Jakkhi Bigha and will bring together representatives from the Magadh and Shahabad regions. Later, in Begusarai, the programme at the Barauni Refinery Township Stadium will be attended by about 2,500 BJP leaders and workers from Patna, Begusarai, Nalanda, Khagaria, Jamui, Lakhisarai, Munger and Sheikhpura districts.
The BJP faces a major challenge in the Magadh and Shahabad belts, where it was swept aside in the 2020 assembly elections and suffered further losses in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to the Grand Alliance. Shah’s visit, party leaders said, is aimed at reviving the NDA’s fortunes in the region.
Shah is scheduled to return to Delhi on Thursday evening but will be back in Bihar on 27 September for further strategy sessions. The party has divided the state into five zones, and Shah is expected to meet leaders from each zone in separate rounds of consultations.
