Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar announced on Tuesday that deputy chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav would lead the ruling Grand Alliance in the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections. He also iterated that he is not in the race for the Prime Minister’s position.

The announcement came at a meeting of the leaders and legislators belonging to the Grand Alliance on the first day of the winter session of the state legislature.

The MLAs and MLCs belonging to the seven-party alliance — Nitish’s Janata Dal United (JDU), RJD, Congress, CPIML, CPI, CPM and Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular (HAMS) — were present on the occasion. Tejashwi was also there.

“Tejashwi will lead the Grand Alliance in the 2025 Assembly elections. He has to take the alliance forward. I have neither the wish to become chief minister anymore nor the Prime Minister. I am not a candidate for the Prime Minister’s position,” Nitish said while chairing the alliance meeting.

“My only aim is to defeat the BJP in the 2024 general elections. We all want to remove the BJP,” Nitish said.

Though the chief minister had previously hinted about his intentions to have Lalu’s youngest son Tejashwi lead the alliance, this is the first time he stated it so clearly along with a timeframe.

However, Nitish, 71, has not said anything about abdicating in favour of Tejashwi or declaring him the heir apparent.

The tenure of the present Assembly is till November 2025. In fact, the chief minister has been facing insinuations, hints and pressure from several RJD leaders to allow Tejashwi to take his place ever since he broke away from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and joined the Grand Alliance to form a new government.

Though the alliance has 163 members and the support of an independent MLA in the 243-seat Assembly, Nitish’s JDU has just 45. On the other hand, the RJD has 79. The rest are with the Congress and the Left parties.