Bihar’s election results leave very little room for interpretation.
The NDA has taken 202 of the state’s 243 assembly seats, a performance so lopsided that it rearranges the state’s political terrain for the next half-decade. The turnout was unusually high, and the run-up to voting saw gestures as large as the Rs 10,000 direct cash transfer to women, derided by many analysts as electoral bribery. But numbers alone don’t explain scale. This kind of victory needs a deeper reading.
And this result says far more about the voter’s idea of stability than about the NDA’s idea of triumph.
You’ll read ample post-election analysis of booth logistics, caste engineering, micro-management, cadre discipline and arithmetic. All of that is true, and all of it is insufficient. Bihar did not vote on just data and policy numbers. It voted on how it experiences stability, and voted on the political figure whose presence feels least likely to disrupt the daily scaffolding of life. And that is where Nitish Kumar walked ahead of his competitors – perhaps not in stature as he used to, certainly not in freshness, but in familiarity.
The known shadow
Nitish Kumar is not the man he was fifteen years ago. His health is declining, his political shifts are frequent enough to earn satire and derision, and his once-precise administrative edge feels like it has eroded. None of this is hidden from the public. Bihar sees him clearly, flaws and all. However, when he still stands in front of the electorate, something about his presence – the shadow he casts, rather than the figure he is – still feels more predictable than the alternatives.
Nitish Kumar’s shadow, even after twenty years, still settles over Bihar in a way no other leader’s shadow does. It’s not because he has remained the same man; he hasn’t. His health is failing, his political restlessness annoys everyone, and no one imagines he is operating at the sharpness of his first decade in office.
But power is projection, not purity. Even a diminished man can loom large if he stands where the light hits him right. And the voter, especially the poor voter whose day depends on the thin scaffolding of state support, knows exactly where Nitish stands in that light. They have seen him at his worst, and they have lived through the opposition at its worst, and the calculation between the two is not a matter of taste – it is a matter of survival.
People with comfortable lives can afford to roll the dice in the name of change. People living on Bihar’s per capita income of Rs 60,000-68,000 a year cannot. In Bihar, the midday meal is not mere symbolism; it is lunch. The cycle for a daughter is not empowerment jargon; it is mobility. The scholarship is not a line item; it is the bridge between education and nothingness. These are places where risk is measured with abject brutality. A voter who has experienced instability before will never gamble on instability again just because they are tired of the present. Fatigue is not the same as anger, and it certainly is not a mandate for upheaval.
This is why Nitish, with all his dents and doubts, still looked like the safest bargain. His failures are familiar; his missteps are survivable. He has disappointed people before, but he has not destroyed their routines. And the truth is that his 20 years of governance – uneven as they might be – have built constituencies that do not move easily.
Women whose lives genuinely changed under his policies do not forget the change just because the man has grown older. In fact, that may endear him more to some. Fatigue is not the same as mistrust – and Bihar was tired of Nitish, not frightened of him. That distinction decided the election.
Chirag Paswan and the return of a missing limb
There is no honest analysis of this verdict without recognising Chirag Paswan of the LJP (RV) as one of its central architects. The last time Bihar voted, Chirag split the NDA’s flanks by relentlessly attacking the JD(U). He did not win much for himself, but he damaged the alliance with surgical accuracy. The NDA’s earlier drop in numbers was as much his doing as anyone else’s.
This time, he walked into the alliance tent, and the effect was immediate. Chirag didn’t just return votes to the NDA; he reattached an entire missing limb to their support base. His appeal among Dalit youth, the sentimentality of the Paswan name, his aggressive, media-savvy campaigning, and his willingness to lean fully into the NDA frame all contributed to a consolidation that the NDA lacked last time.
The LJP (RV)’s sweep is not a decorative achievement. It is one of the key reasons the NDA’s victory crossed the line from strong to overwhelming. Chirag didn’t pad the NDA – he compounded it. In Bihar, this expansion mattered far more than enthusiasm.
A Coalition That Behaved Like One
The BJP’s role in this victory goes beyond its usual reputation for organisational muscle. What mattered more this time was their behaviour as an alliance partner. Large parties are typically the most difficult in seat-sharing; the BJP acted the opposite. They conceded seats with minimal friction, calibrated messaging with partners quickly, stitched up negotiations without theatrics, and gave enough logistical and operational space to both JD(U), LJP (RV), and HAM to minimise the ego battles.
This is not generosity, it is pragmatic strategy. And in Bihar, where alliances collapse so often for every possible difference under the Sun, this discipline mattered. It created an impression of stability even before the first vote was cast.
The opposition’s refusal to evolve played its part too. They continue to speak as if pointing out governance failures is a substitute for building trust. They offer criticism but rarely demonstrate a capacity for stable stewardship. They blame the system without asking why the system – meaning the voter – refuses to trust them on the issues they point out.
Bihar did not hand the NDA two hundred seats merely because the others faltered. It did so because the NDA, for once, entered the race looking like a cohesive unit rather than a negotiation table.
A practical choice
This mandate is not about excitement. It’s not about ideology. It’s not a celebration of leadership or a vote of faith in grand narratives. It is a decision made by people who live with very thin margins of error, who cannot afford turbulence. For them, government is not performance; it is infrastructure. It must hold.
Nitish Kumar, even in his diminished form, represents a version of governance that they know how to survive. Chirag Paswan brought a demographic the NDA needed. The BJP stitched the alliance together without friction. The opposition failed to convince people that they were a safer alternative.
The result is simple: Bihar chose the path it could predict.
This article was first published in Newslaundry.