On Monday, as Nitish Kumar once again took oath as Chief Minister—for the fourth time in a row—portrait Patna's was misleading in its resemblance. The return of Nitish masks the transition. With an older generation of politicians and slogans receding, Bihar politics is on the verge of transformation, and Election 2020 has become a battle for its survival. In the run-up to the contours of the competition, it will be more useful to look at the two new Deputy Chief Ministers who were both sworn in with Nitish. Sushil Modi, seen as a Quiescent Number Two, has been replaced by two Deputy CMs whose appointment is a node to the electoral districts in which the BJP wishes to grow, including in particular, those cultivated by the ally Nitish.

The low profile of Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi helps them all the more to act as their party's symbolic gestures to non-Yadav OBCs, Highly Backward Castes and women. Of these, Nitish Kumar's JD(U) has cultivated and nurtured two groups—so far, in its 15-year term, along with a broad-based growth, Nitish has adopted a social engineering strategy that directly targeted EBCs and women. Both also benefited from panchayats' reservations, and the Nitish government's policy of prohibition is generally regarded as an effort to improve support for woman voters. It is clear that the BJP is now looking over Nitish's shoulder when it claims to these electoral districts. Given his own humbling tally—the JD(U) had fallen from 71 to 43 seats in the House of 243—Nitish may not be able to do much. But the RJD, which emerged as the single largest party and the second pole of the contest, would need to summon a response to BJP expansionism as it completes an internal transformation. In this election, Tejashwi led from the front and gave the RJD a new look that needs to be fine-tuned. The RJD of the future looks less tied to the M-Y formula and more open to introducing fresh slogans to the old war cry of the Samajik party of Lalu Prasad.

The potential contest in Bihar could have two more features—one that should be of interest to the Congress and the other to representative democracy. The fall of the Congress in the state it once controlled appears unregulated, and it also appears to fail to see and hear. The war of words triggered by senior leader Kapil Sibal's remarks in a post-conference interview with this paper underscores the crisis and syndrome of the Congress. But this election has pointed to something much more critical than the rise or collapse of the Congress: for the first time in decades, the governing coalition in Bihar would not have an MLA belonging to the state's largest minority. Moving ahead, the absence of a Muslim leader in the new government of Bihar would bother all those who have stakes in inclusive democracy.