The people of Bihar have delivered a mandate whose weight goes well beyond the arithmetic of seats. The National Democratic Alliance has won 202 of the 243 seats in the Legislative Assembly, while the Bharatiya Janata Party alone has secured 89 seats, its best ever performance in the state. The Mahagathbandhan has fallen to just 34 seats after having dominated Bihar’s politics for decades in various combinations. A turnout of 67.13 per cent out of more than 7.4 crore registered voters makes this one of the most intensely contested elections in the state’s recent history and gives the result real democratic depth.

For years, much of the commentary on Bihar treated the state as if it were frozen in time. Elections were read as exercises in caste arithmetic, with social demography assumed to translate mechanically into political outcomes. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, the grammar of Indian politics has shifted decisively towards development, inclusion and state capacity, and Bihar’s electorate has responded to that shift with unusual clarity. The 2025 result reveals a more demanding voter, one who has looked at the contrast between the Bihar of insecurity and paralysis and the Bihar of improved governance. Many citizens have also expressed, in conversations and turnout patterns, that this election carried a sense of responsibility after the lower-than-expected mobilisation in the 2024 general election. They have drawn their own conclusions about where they want Bihar to stand in the country’s wider journey.

Governance delivery has anchored this transformation. Over the last decade, Bihar has seen more than 55,000 kilometres of rural roads built or upgraded, linking villages to markets, schools and health centres. Millions of households have received electricity, drinking water and social security through a combination of central........

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