Defections Jolt NDA as Former Minister Renu Kushwaha Joins RJD, Tejashwi Targets Koiri Vote Ahead of 2025 Bihar Polls

Patna: With the Bihar Assembly elections approaching, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is intensifying its outreach to the influential Kushwaha (Koiri) community—long considered a crucial part of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) vote base. In a major political development on Wednesday, former state minister Renu Kushwaha joined the RJD in the presence of Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav.

Renu Kushwaha, once a close ally of Nitish Kumar and a prominent Koiri face, was joined by several other community leaders, including Raghavendra Singh Kushwaha, former JAP state president; Vijay Kushwaha, who contested recent Lok Sabha elections; and Rajiv Ranjan Koiri, among others. The induction was seen as a strategic move by the RJD to tap into the Koiri voter bloc, which constitutes over 4 percent of Bihar’s population, according to the caste census of 2023.

Speaking at the event, Tejashwi declared that the RJD was committed to giving the Kushwaha community its due political representation. “If the Kushwaha community takes one step towards us, I will take four steps towards them,” he said, in a pointed message to Nitish Kumar’s JD(U). He also criticised the BJP and RSS, alleging that they have systematically sidelined Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs).

RJD state president Mangani Lal Mandal formally welcomed the new entrants and handed them party membership. Tejashwi promised that the community would be fairly represented in the upcoming assembly elections through ticket distribution.

Renu Kushwaha’s political career has traversed several parties. She was a JD(U) MP from Khagaria and later served as a minister in Nitish Kumar’s cabinet. In 2014, she quit JD(U) and joined the BJP, but left after being denied a Lok Sabha ticket in 2019. She briefly joined the LJP (Ram Vilas) under Chirag Paswan, but resigned before the 2024 general elections, accusing Chirag of “selling tickets.” Her entry into RJD is being seen as a homecoming to the political mainstream.

The defection is part of a broader churn in Bihar politics as parties reposition themselves ahead of the 2025 state polls. With Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) relying heavily on the ‘Luv-Kush’ (Kurmi-Koiri) equation, the RJD’s overtures to the Kushwaha community could disrupt long-held caste alignments within the NDA.