The BJP is eyeing a rare social coalition including “upper” castes and a majority of backward classes in Bihar for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. With this the party bids to vanquish the formidable RJD-JD(U) alliance, which had inflicted a crushing defeat on it in the 2015 assembly elections.

While Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) may be the strongest party in the Bihar ruling alliance, the BJP believes that its road to success lies in the dismantlement of the support base of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), which has long enjoyed the backing of a collection of non-Yadav backward castes and some Dalit communities. Union Home Minister Amit Shah will on Sunday attend programmes to mark the birth anniversary of the great Maurya emperor Ashoka, in Patna.