Bihar Assembly Elections 2025: Nitish Kumar outshines allies and adversaries, Tejashwi Yadav emerges as the weakest link

Tejashwi Yadav’s limited outreach and reliance on traditional vote banks cost the Opposition dearly.

We waited with bated breath for the results of Bihar’s election. For over a month, one question that loomed was whether Bihar would continue to have faith in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s cautious reforms over the years, or would embrace the promise of change. The verdict given by the electorate reaffirms that in a state with ever-changing political calculus, Kumar stands as the ‘pole star’ of Bihar’s political landscape: bright and steady.

On the other hand, Tejashwi Yadav remains the weakest link in the Opposition. Unlike in 2020, the blame for the collapse of the Mahagathbandhan (MGB) cannot be put on the weak shoulders of the Congress. This election (the second led by Tejashwi Yadav) highlighted the RJD’s limitations in expanding beyond its traditional Muslim-Yadav vote bank.

What appeared in 2024 to be a shift of Kushwaha voters towards the RJD was also limited in this election. This stems from a limitation in Tejashwi Yadav’s political strategy. He continues to rely on traditional vote blocs without attempting a significant social or ideological expansion.

In contrast, examine the efforts Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav has made over the last five years to move beyond his votes through regular and umbrella outreach to PDA (Pichda, Dalit, Alpasankhyak). Breaking electoral barriers, he also met the astronaut Sudhanshu Shukla, seen as a clever political outreach to impress upon upper-caste votes, now dominated by the BJP.

The MGB made some last-minute (too little, too late) efforts, such as declaring Mukesh Sahni as deputy chief minister, to win some Mallah votes. In the end, the electorate proved smart enough not to give a chance to someone who ventured into an electoral campaign on the ground just before the elections. The MGB even failed to announce that a Muslim could be a deputy chief minister, thus taking a massive hit in the minority-dominated Seemanchal region.

Bhojpur, a region where the MGB did well in 2020, also disappointed this time, virtually wiping it out. Tejashwi Yadav anchored his campaign on issues of youth unemployment and governance, including health, education, and irrigation. With a constrained caste strategy and weak local outreach in the field, his macro-narrative did not translate into last-mile traction.

The NDA was a wider caste and aspiration-based coalition to start with. No wonder the BJP seems to have had its best strike rate in terms of seats. Kumar commands strong loyalty from Bihar’s EBC communities, who comprise approximately 36% of the population, although this group is divided across 113 castes. His core support comes from the non-Muslim EBCs, around 26%, along with Kurmi and Koeri voters, while the BJP traditionally relies on influential upper-caste groups. Still, the BJP has expanded its appeal by promoting leaders from non-Yadav OBC and EBC communities, which has helped it secure around 30% of the vote in recent elections.

In contrast, Tejashwi Yadav failed in any sort of social engineering. The RJD failed to reach out to individual interest groups for any possible expansion. The Bihar electorate, unlike in many other states, is not driven by distant aspirations or grand narratives of transformation. It remains grounded in the immediate and the tangible outcomes of governance and welfare delivery.

There is abject poverty in the state, but Kumar is seen as someone who has been quietly working towards improving the state. The RJD’s emphasis on youth and employment but near silence on day-to-day pressing issues failed to strike a chord with this sentiment.

Meanwhile, Kumar shrewdly leveraged his incumbency advantage. Just days before the elections, his government announced a one-time transfer of ₹10,000 to Jeevika women and increased the old-age pension from ₹400 to ₹1,000. Such measures reinforced his image as a leader of quiet continuity, one who delivers small but concrete benefits. The resounding 10% difference in vote share between the two coalitions is partly attributed to this.

This was probably Kumar’s last election outing. He not only trumped his Opposition but also his allies. The BJP conceded his indispensability, even after he switched sides twice and moved towards the MGB camp. Without a controversial statement, a viral video, or being the media’s favourite, Nitish Kumar, who was once touted as the BJP’s majboori, and whose age-related ailments became a point of discussion, emerged as the biggest gainer in this election.

This inevitably raises a deeper question: what now for the Opposition? For Tejashwi Yadav, it is time to pull up his socks. Mamata Banerjee, M K Stalin, Hemant Soren, and even Rahul Gandhi have proved that the BJP can be defeated, but Tejashwi Yadav has repeatedly failed. The question is: whether the Opposition will ever be able to outdo the BJP and its allies, who have built a wider caste coalition in almost every state, and when some tweaks in policy and governance can create a huge pro-incumbency wave.

It is good to recall the wise words of late Shankarshan Thakur, who in his seminal book The Brothers Bihari wrote: ‘Laloo Yadav and Nitish Kumar a chalk and cheese. One, a charismatic but tainted populist, the other a shrewd introvert.’ With this election, the taint of ‘the populist’ is too deep to be wiped off, and still haunts the memory of the people of Bihar.

Rachit Seth is founder, Policy Briefcase, and a political communications consultant. Aakash Mehrotra is an international development consultant. X handle: @rachitseth and @aakashmehrotra

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)