Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and Women in Bihar.
Credit: PTI
Reposing their undiminished trust in Nitish Kumar, fifth time in a row since 2005, the people of Bihar, especially its women who came out in large numbers to vote, handed a mammoth four-fifth majority to the NDA, in an election that re-established JD(U)’s preeminent position in the state politics, making it a natural claimant for the chief ministership.
For the BJP too, the results of the Friday counting for 243 seats in the state Assembly are a watershed moment in its long-drawn effort to find parity with JD(U), which bagged 85 seats, in Bihar. Registering its best-ever performance, the saffron outfit emerged for the first time as the single largest party in the state Assembly, to end the day with 89 seats with an almost 90% strike rate. Only the 12 of the 101 candidates it fielded lost their election.
The Bihar bonanza gives Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leading a coalition government at the Centre, more leeway in dealing with his allies and opponents.
“The people of Bihar have voted on the basis of our track record,” Modi posted on X, endorsing Nitish Kumar’s leadership even as he congratulated all NDA allies for the stellar performance in an election where alliance partners ensured seamless transfer of votes between one another.
“With support from you all (allies) Bihar will emerge as one of the most developed states in the country,” Nitish reciprocated in a social media post.
The Friday frenzy in Patna is the closest NDA has come to its record-breaking 2010 performance when the BJP-JD(U) combine romped home with 206 seats.
Such is the intensity of the mandate that, together with minor partners like Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Paswan, Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM and Upendra Kushwaha’s RLM, the NDA minus the JD(U) is just shy of the halfway mark.
The NDA landslide left the Opposition I.N.D.I.A bloc badly bruised and battered, deeply exposing the limitations of majoritarian Mandal politics over pragmatic socialism. Lalu Yadav’s son and heir apparent, Tejaswi, won from the family bastion Raghopur after trailing in the initial rounds. The elder son, Tej Pratap, who had rebelled to form his own party, however, lost to Mohua.
All I.N.D.I.A bloc allies went down with the mothership, with Congress ending the day with a single-digit tally, sputtering yet again in its efforts to emerge as a coherent national alternative to the BJP.
Of the six seats, Congress won one by a margin on 200, one by 600 and another by 1,600 votes.
The 2025 Bihar election establishes Nitish Kumar as the undisputed Teflon King of Indian politics. No matter what you throw at him, nothing sticks. Not allegations of graft levelled by the Opposition. Not his periodical flip-flops across the ‘secular-communal’ divide. And not even the stories circulating about his health, as JD(U) emerged as the biggest gainer after the Friday counting, almost doubling its tally from the 43 it got in the 2020 elections.
Social scientist Ajay Kumar says NDA’s rainbow social coalition, powered by the ME (Mahila-Extremely Backward Class), pitched against Lalu Yadav’s MY (Muslim-Yadav) combination, exposed the limitations of majoritarian Mandal politics.
Though his tally less was a than the BJP’s, Nitish Kumar seems to have made his point: it is he and not Lalu Yadav who stands between the BJP and the saffron outfits’ complete dominance of Bihar politics.
With the 2025 win, Nitish Kumar entered the select club of leaders like Jyoti Basu, Naveen Patnaik and Pawan Chamling of Sikkim to remain in office for two decades or more.
Unlike others in the set, Kumar has displayed a remarkable ability to switch sides - from secular to communal, from one end of the political spectrum to another - and yet remains scathed.
Though the NDA arithmetic strengthens the BJP’s hand in negotiating with Nitish Kumar, in the past it has not baulked, as in 2020, at conceding chief ministership despite winning more seats than JD(U). On two occasions, the BJP has welcomed Nitish Kumar back to the NDA, knowing fully well the advantage of having one of the tallest leaders from the minor-OBC community among its midst.
With UP elections in 2027, where SP’s Akhilesh Yadav is making a strong pitch for backward votes, the BJP would not want to send a wrong signal.
If he is chosen to lead the government again, Nitish will take oath for the 10th time: the chief minister with 10 lives.