New DelhiOctober 17, 2025 12:07 PM IST
First published on: Oct 17, 2025 at 07:57 AM IST
Over a year and a half after the Lok Sabha polls, Bihar is set for another election next month, as the NDA and the Opposition Mahagathbandhan face off in two phases to decide who will govern the state for the next five years (the results will be announced on November 14).
The NDA was the clear winner in 2024, winning 30 of the state’s 40 Lok Sabha seats, while the alliance bagged nine and one went to Pappu Yadav, an Independent allied to it. An Assembly segment-level analysis makes the NDA’s dominance more evident. It led in 174 segments, well ahead of the Opposition’s lead in 62 segments.
Though the Opposition’s “Save the Constitution” campaign appeared to have worked in crucial states such as Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra last year, it wasn’t enough to tilt the scales in Bihar.
Since then, the Mahagathbandhan has launched a campaign on voter rights, going on a yatra against the Election Commission’s (EC) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, and made jobs and migration cornerstones of its poll plank, with the RJD promising a government job in each family. The Nitish Kumar government is banking on the welfare initiatives focused on women and the youth launched in the lead-up to the polls. Then there is also the Prashant Kishor factor. One of the things to watch out for will be how much impact the political strategist’s Jan Suraaj movement has on the outcome.
Though the Lok Sabha election map in Bihar may not be an accurate indicator of how the poll contest is stacked up, it is useful in illustrating the scale of the uphill task that awaits RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and his allies as they attempt to unseat Nitish Kumar, who has been the CM since 2005.
Assembly segments
Though the BJP and the JD(U) each won 12 Lok Sabha seats — having contested 17 and 16 seats respectively — the Nitish Kumar-led party led in 72 Assembly segments and the BJP in 68. The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), led by Chirag Paswan, which won all five Lok Sabha seats it contested, led in 29 Assembly segments, the number of seats it has been allocated as part of the seat-sharing pact. At 169 segments, just these three parties together led in enough segments to cross the Assembly’s majority mark of 122 seats. Altogether, the NDA led in 174 Assembly segments with a combined vote share of 48.21%.
Assembly segment-level results of 2024 Lok Sabha polls
The Mahagathbandhan’s lead mainly came from the RJD, which got the most votes in 36 segments. It won four of the 23 Lok Sabha seats it contested. The Congress and CPI(ML) Liberation each led in 12 segments, with the Congress winning three of the nine parliamentary constituencies it contested and the CPI(ML) Liberation won two of its three Lok Sabha seats. Factoring in the CPI, CPI(M), and the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), the Mahagathbandhan led in 62 segments, with a combined vote share of 40.08%.
In the remaining seven Assembly segments, Independents led in five and Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM led in two.
A feature of the Congress’s performance was its inability to secure the most votes in every Assembly segment, even in the Lok Sabha seats it won. In Katihar, Kishanganj, and Sasaram, the Congress led in just three of the six segments in each but still managed to win overall. In contrast, the RJD and CPI(ML)(L) carried their respective Lok Sabha seats with leads in at least five of the six Assembly segments within each of them.
In contrast, the NDA won 14 Lok Sabha seats by leading every Assembly segment under them – five each by the BJP and JD(U), and four by the LJP(RV). In 12 Lok Sabha seats, the NDA was able to lead five of six Assembly segments. In two Lok Sabha seats, the ruling alliance led four of the six Assembly segments. But in Saran, the BJP won the Lok Sabha seat despite leading in only three of the six Assembly segments. In Purnia, the JD(U) led in just two of its six Assembly segments but still won the seat.
Vote shares
Parties won 109 seats with at least 50% vote share, with the NDA’s tally at 94. The BJP put in the most such dominant performances, securing more than half the vote share in 49 segments, followed by the JD(U) in 23, and the LJP(RV) in 18.
In the Mahagathbandhan, the RJD won more than half the votes in eight segments, followed by the Congress, and CPI(ML) Liberation in just two each.
Margins
The LJP (RV) had the highest average lead. Across the 29 Assembly segments where it led, its average lead was 25,282 votes. For the BJP, it was 22,128 votes, and for the JD(U) it was 20,624 votes.
In contrast, the RJD’s average lead in its 36 segments was 15,002 votes. The same figure for the Congress was 17,590 votes, and 12,506 votes for the CPI(ML) Liberation. The state-wide average lead was 19,864 votes.
There were also a handful of low-margin Assembly segments. In 71 segments, the lead was well below 10,000 votes, and in 40 segments it dropped below 5,000 votes.
But in a total of 40 segments, a party placing third or lower was able to secure more votes than the lead, indicating they may have influenced the outcome. The assumption here is that had the votes polled by these parties transferred completely to the eventual runner-up, they would have won. The Mayawati-led BSP was the most prominent among these parties, “influencing” results in 15 Assembly segments, followed by the AIMIM in four.
In the 40 segments where “vote-cutters” played a role, the BJP lost out the most, finishing second in 10 segments, followed by the RJD in nine, the JD(U) in six, the Congress in three, and the Left in two.
