Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah led the BJP and NDA’s Assembly poll campaign in such a strong and organised way that the Opposition found it almost impossible to seriously challenge them. Their presence and leadership gave the alliance a clear edge in Bihar right from the start. But amid celebrations, there is another leader who also played an important role and cannot be overlooked: Vinod Tawde, the party’s national general secretary and the BJP’s in-charge for Bihar.
While top BJP leaders addressed massive rallies, Tawde worked in a very different style. In consultation with the central leadership, the former Maharashtra minister quietly guided the party’s entire campaign strategy. He preferred staying away from the spotlight, choosing to focus on planning, coordination, and making sure the organisation ran smoothly on the ground.
By press time, the BJP seemed to have won 90 of the 101 Assembly seats it contested, giving it a strike rate of 90 per cent. Speaking to mid-day over the phone from Bihar, Tawde said, “The massive victory is not merely because of new promises. The outcome is a reflection of development work done in the last ten years.” In 2014, Tawde contested from the Borivli Assembly constituency and was a cabinet minister in the Devendra Fadnavis government. Later, Tawde was denied a ticket to contest the Borivali Assembly seat in 2019.
While many felt Tawde was being sidelined, the BJP leader was later elevated to the central leadership. In 2022, the party assigned the task of overseeing party activities in Bihar to the former education minister of Maharashtra. Since then, the Mumbai-based BJP leader has been making the rounds in Bihar. In fact, for the last three months, the leader has been in Bihar for four or five days a week to ensure better coordination and smooth implementation of the party agenda. Before being given the Bihar responsibility, Tawde was in charge of Haryana.
Thanking the party for giving him the responsibility for such a crucial state where political equations are fragile, Tawde explained that the BJP and all its allies worked with the belief that all 243 candidates belonged to them. “People of Bihar voted based on development and not emotions,” he said.
