Maithili Thakur enters Bihar Assembly as state’s youngest MLA.
Credit: PTI Photo
As 25-year-old Maithili Thakur strides into the Bihar Legislative Assembly as the state’s youngest MLA, she rises as a potent symbol of change. A young woman, a poster girl, is already the talk of the town. Her singing career brought her fame; politics will bring power, perhaps to change things, many things.
The recently-concluded Bihar elections had a strong gender skew. There was a deluge of welfare sops for women, and women voters turned out in unprecedented numbers, helping the ruling NDA secure a decisive victory. A more complex question is whether that translates into real power for women, or whether this is a one-off moment of electoral engine rather than empowerment.
Women’s turnout in the 2025 Bihar Assembly polls rose sharply: women voted at ~71.6% compared with ~62.98% for men. They outvoted men in many districts: in seven districts, women turned out at rates ~14 percentage points (pp) higher than men; in 10 more, the gap exceeded ~10 pp. The result: many analysts say women, both as voters and beneficiaries of welfare schemes, were a decisive force behind the NDA’s landslide.
The NDA won 202 out of 243 seats. However, only 28 women are among the winners, representing a mere 11.5% of the Assembly, and they remain largely absent from the spoils of the outcome.
The contrast is, therefore, sharp. Despite the significant role of women in voting, their representation in decision-making and policymaking remains modest. In the 2022 Cabinet under Nitish Kumar, there were only three women ministers (out of the 26 women MLAs in that Assembly). The NDA’s win came from women voters, but the legislature’s picture did not change.
In the run-up to this election, the Nitish Kumar government launched a slate of women-centric welfare schemes that converted potential goodwill into electoral traction. At the Centre was the newly-minted Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana, which deposited ₹10,000 each into the bank accounts of over one crore women and promised up to ₹2.1 lakh in phased assistance for self-employment ventures.
Complementing this were longstanding measures, such as providing free bicycles to schoolgirls, a 50% reservation for women in local bodies, and a 35% quota for women in police recruitment, alongside a significant increase in monthly pensions for widowed and disabled women ahead of the election.
For many women voters, especially in rural and marginalised households, these were not just promises but tangible cash or benefit flows that improved mobility, agency, and day-to-day security. In effect, the NDA framed itself as the women-worker’s government, offering tools of self-employment (rather than only handouts), acknowledging women’s economic roles, and subtly shifting the gender narrative from passive beneficiary to active participant. Because of this, women voters had both an incentive and an identification. That dual appeal helps explain why women turned out in huge numbers, and why the NDA captured their vote in droves.
Yet, the number of women fielded was only 10%. Out of the total 2,600 candidates in the fray, there were only 255 women.
Women deliver the mandate, but seldom hold power
Nationally, only ~10% of MLAs across all Assemblies are women, when women make up nearly half the electorate. Most states hover in single digits: a 2022 law ministry review found that 19 Assemblies had fewer than 10% women MLAs, while only a handful — Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, and Rajasthan — crossed the modest 10-12% range.
Recent updates from ADR show that, even today, no major state exceeds 20%, with Chhattisgarh (~21%) being a notable outlier. In absolute numbers, large states like Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have the highest number of women MLAs (around 40-50), but this still represents a small proportion of their vast legislatures.
Parliament is marginally better. The current Lok Sabha has 74 women MPs out of 543, about 14%, which is India’s highest ever, yet still far below the global average. The Rajya Sabha fares similarly at ~12%. Even the 2023 passage of the Women’s Reservation Act, which promised a 33% reservation in Parliament and Assemblies, has not yet been implemented, and the number of women candidates has remained at only 10%, leaving women’s legislative strength stagnant.
The picture becomes even more unequal when we examine who actually governs. An analysis of 27 state Cabinets, Union Council ministers, and UT ministries shows that only about 10% of all ministers in India are women. Himachal Pradesh, Puducherry, and Sikkim currently have no women ministers at all. Even where women’s representation is relatively higher in Assemblies, it rarely translates into Cabinet berths.
West Bengal, under Mamata Banerjee, remains a rare exception, with roughly eight women ministers in her 2021 Cabinet out of 43, but still less than 20%. At the Union level, the picture is similar: only seven women ministers in a 70-plus-member Council of Ministers, and just two with Cabinet rank.
The pattern is unmistakable: women vote, but they do not rule. They deliver decisive mandates, reshape turnout patterns, and increasingly influence election outcomes, as we just saw in Bihar, but their presence at the decision-making table remains limited.
Women in Bihar have once again proven that they are not just voters but the very engine of political legitimacy. They turned out in record numbers, swung the mandate, and placed the NDA comfortably in power. Yet when it comes to sharing that power, the door suddenly narrows. How long can we call this a ‘balance’? A democracy where women deliver the victory, but men deliver the decisions, is not a balance; it’s a bargain.
Women have moved ahead, the system has not. What justifies a political structure where women are central to the mandate but peripheral to the ministry? When half the electorate influences who governs, the same half deserves a proportionate role in how the state is governed. It is a democratic imbalance that India can no longer ignore.
Now the onus shifts to the new government in Bihar. If women can turn an election, they certainly deserve to help turn the state’s future. A genuine balance will come not only from welfare schemes but also from representation, leadership, and the courage to place women at the centre of decision-making. Bihar has already shown what women can do when they vote. The next leap, ensuring they also govern, is not just politically wise; it is democratically necessary.
Vineeta Dwivedi is Associate Professor of Organisation and Leadership Studies, S P Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR).
(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH).