'Abki Baari, Yuva Bihari': Amid Seat-Share Talks, Chirag Paswan's Party Jab

Ahead of next month's election the Lok Janshakti Party's 'abki baari, yuva Bihari' war cry post on X Monday night - a call-out to youngsters, a critical-but-disillusioned vote bank in a state struggling with high levels of unemployment - seems a perfectly ordinary political tactic.

But hidden just beneath the surface is a not unfamiliar message - that LJP boss Chirag Paswan is gunning for the chief minister's post - that means different things to different people.

To the Bharatiya Janata Party, with whom the LJP is allied at the federal level and is in seat-share talks with in Bihar, it underlines Paswan's continued support even if relations with the other half of the Bihar government - i.e., Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United - are fractious.

The JDU has never really warmed to Paswan. Much of that has to do with the 2020 election, when it felt the 'targeted' by - and lost vote-share to - a LJP tacitly backed by its 'ally', the BJP.

अबकी बारी , युवा बिहारी।#ChiragPaswan #Bihar1st_Bihari1st pic.twitter.com/QzYnY8P8vr

— Lok Janshakti Party (Ramvilas) (@LJP4India) October 6, 2025

The LJP is equally lukewarm towards Nitish Kumar, whom it sees as blocking Chirag Paswan's route to the state's top job. In the build-up to this election Paswan has frequently called out the Chief Minister, particularly over the law-and-order situation in Bihar, to a point where the BJP had to step in.

Paswan later endorsed Nitish Kumar for Chief Minister.

But the tension never really went away, as evident by other occasions this year in which posters announcing Chirag Paswan as the next Chief Minister of Bihar popped up around Patna.

The last time posters like this made an appearance was in May.

Then NDTV asked Paswan if he had given his 'silent consent', he said, "Many times sentiments of the workers are so strong you cannot stop them even if you want to." He also said every party worker should have the sentiment that their chief should become Chief Minister.

The message for the JDU, therefore, seems to be 'time's up'. Unemployment and the disgruntled young Bihari men and women are widely expected to be big factors in this election - which is why the opposition, led by Tejashwi Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal - is also courting them.

Paswan earlier rolled out his 'Bihar first, Bihari first' agenda addressing joblessness.

But the reality, however, is the JDU commands (or has commanded, so far), the votes needed for the BJP to pick it as its big-ticket partner in the state, and Paswan has to bide his time.

Jabs on the crime rate in Bihar and posters implanting the idea of a Chirag Paswan government in the state are one way of bringing the electorate around. Simultaneously, however, Paswan will want to ensure he remains in the good books of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP.

That's where the wording on today's poster comes into play.

'Abki baar, yuva Bihar' copies the BJP's 'abki baar, Modi sarkar' and 'abki baar, 400 paar' campaign slogans from recent elections, including last year's Lok Sabha poll, and many have seen that as a nod to the saffron party - that Paswan continues to support Modi and his party.

Another aspect of the wording is that neither the poster nor the accompanying tweet actually refers to Chirag Paswan as a chief ministerial candidate. On the face of it, it is simply a rallying cry for a political leader who is (negotiating to be) part of a larger alliance.

The Bihar election will take place over two phases. Voting will be on November 6 and 11, and the results will be declared three days later, on November 14.