A striking poster featuring Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar standing beside a tiger, captioned boldly 'tiger abhi zinda hai' (tiger is alive), appeared outside his residence on Friday, as the NDA marching towards up a clear victory in the assembly elections.
The poster, cinematic in its framing and unmistakably designed to project authority, quickly became a magnetic point for cameras and cadre alike.
It went up at around the same time the Election Commission began flashing the day's first substantive trends.
The ruling NDA looks like to sweep assembly seats, according to trends available on the Election Commission's website.
JD-U workers gathered around the poster as if unveiling a victory totem ahead of time.
"'Sirf trend aaya hai, par message clear hai, Nitish ji politics ka asli tiger hain', (the trends are only out, Nitish ji is the real tiger of Bihar politics)," one worker told a news channel, posing proudly beside the larger-than-life artwork.
The image of Kumar standing calmly, while a tiger crouches beside him reinforced a long-running political metaphor JD-U supporters invoke whenever questions over his political longevity emerge.
Vehicles slowed to take photographs; some residents stepped out just to see "the tiger poster" making the rounds on social media.
As Bihar geared up for the long day ahead, one visual set the tone early: Nitish Kumar, shoulder-to-shoulder with a tiger, casting an unmistakable message that the "tiger", at least for his supporters, was very much alive.