At 19:14 hours on 14 November, thousands gathered outside the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office in New Delhi. Prompted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they chanted “Chhathi Maiyya Ki Jai" as he rose to deliver his victory speech after the astounding performance of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the hustings in the 2025 Bihar elections.

Those chants will remain etched in history because, at precisely 19:14 hours, the number of seats won by the NDA coalition surged to 125, three more than the 122 needed for an absolute majority in the new Assembly. And at 20:20 hours, minutes after the Prime Minister ended his victory speech, the number of seats won by the NDA surged to 165, three more than 162, the magic number needed for a two-thirds majority.

Ni Na Tsunami

The caravan should have stopped here, because a two-thirds majority was the most optimistic figure that even the boldest poll pundits had suggested in the opinion polls for the NDA. But it was just the beginning, and the silent voters of the poorest state of Bharat stumped psephologists of all genres by ushering in a Ni Na tsunami (Nitish–Narendra tsunami) that decimated the Mahagathbandhan.

The Numbers Speak

As Friday turned into Saturday, the final picture of the NDA’s stupendous win emerged – more than a four-fifths majority in the Assembly, unprecedented in any state election in recent times.

Here is what the numbers show:

Ni Na Tsunami: NDA total seats – 202 (four-fifths mark: 194), of which

Mahagathbandhan decimated – 34 seats, of which

Others –

What a scale of victory it turned out to be. It is only the second time in history that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has crossed the 200-seat mark in Bihar Assembly elections, and this performance, with 202 seats, is next only to the 206 seats won by the NDA in 2010.

I will soon decode the unprecedented mandate given by the people of Bihar to the NDA, but before that, a brief look at the relevance of Pataliputra and Bihar for Bharat.

Shows The Way

Bihar, the third most populous state of Bharat, with 89 per cent of its people living in rural areas, has been a cradle of democracy for more than two millennia. It was here, in the seventh century BCE, that the Licchavi Republic sowed the seeds of democracy in the world. After Ajatashatru, the king of Magadha, set up Pataliputra in 490 BCE, for the next 1,000 years, Pataliputra was a cradle of civilisation and played a disproportionate role in the politics, history and culture of Bharat.

Cut to the freedom struggle: it was in Bihar, at Champaran, that Mahatma Gandhi launched his movement, and it was after his famous speech on the Patna lawns that the ground was rechristened Gandhi Maidan. It used to be said that no political leader had truly arrived on the scene until he had addressed a gathering at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan.

Over to 1974: it was in the same Gandhi Maidan that, on 5 June 1974, Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan gave his clarion call of “Sampoorna Kranti" (Total Revolution), which led to the political upheaval of 1977, decimating the “Iron Lady" Indira Gandhi and sowing the seeds of multi-party democracy in the country.

Bye Bye Jungle Raj

Impoverished and underdeveloped Bihar has risen again – this time with the resolute commitment to make the state a “Viksit Bihar", turning it away from the politics of appeasement and the jungle raj that was its bane for decades.

But how did this happen? The paragraphs below tell the story.

Unprecedented

When it comes to the percentage of polling, Bihar has traditionally been a laggard. Also, in the paternalistic society of the underdeveloped state, male members of the family decided how........

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