The 2025 Bihar elections come to a close as the results have been officially announced by the Election Commission of India. This election is quite an important one as the state of Bihar is one of the most populated states in India.
Timeline of the elections
The elections began on October 10th with the notification to the candidates. The candidates filed nominations by October 17th with scrutiny taking place on October 18th. Following the last date for withdrawal, which was October 20th, the total number of candidates contesting in the election was finalised to be 1,314. The first phase of polling took place on 6th November followed by the second phase on November 11th. Finally, counting took place on 14th November along with announcement of results.
Important Candidates
Some important candidates this time were
• Former Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav (RJD)
• Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary (BJP)
• Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Sinha (BJP)
• Vijay Kumar Chaudhary (JDU)
• Ram Kripal Yadav (BJP)
• Tarkishore Prasad (BJP)
• Umesh Singh Kushwaha (JDU)
• Uday Narain Choudhary (RJD)
• Snehlata Kushwaha (RLM)
• Raju Tiwari (LJP-RV)
• Satish Kumar Yadav (BJP)
• Deepa Manjhi (HAM)
• Shyam Rajak (JDU)
• Maithili Thakur (BJP)
• Nitin Nabin (BJP)
• Anant Kumar Singh (JDU)
• Rajesh Ram (Congress)
• Shakeel Ahmad Khan (Congress)
• Ramanuj Prasad Yadav (RJD)
• Maheshwar Hazari (JDU)
Major parties and constituencies of the election
A total of 12 parties have contested in this election. The major parties of these are Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Janata Dal United (JDU), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indian National Congress (INC) . The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) of Chirag Paswan , Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) of Jitan Ram Manjhi and Left parties are other important parties in the state.
There are two major alliances- the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Mahagathbandhan. The NDA is led by Nitish Kumar and includes the BJP, JD(U) and the Lok Janshakti Party. The Mahagathbandhan is led by Tejaswi Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and includes the Indian National Congress as well as the Left Parties.
Important constituencies are Raghopur, Alinagar, Tarapur, Mahua, Lakhisarai, Bettiah, Mokama, Kutumba, Gaya Town, Sasaram, Govindganj, Danapur, Chapra, Sarairanjan, Imamganj, Begusarai, Jamui, Madhubani, Amour and Phulwari.
Two constituencies have been under close watch this election. They are Raghopur and Alinagar. There was a closely fought battle between BJP’s Satish Kumar Yadav and RJD’s Tejaswi Yadav in Raghopur with Tejaswi Yadav emerging victorious by 14532 votes. Tejaswi Yadav has a third term for the seat earlier contested by his parents.
Meanwhile in Alinagar, Maithili Thakur of BJP emerged a giant slayer winning against Binod Mishra of RJD by 11,730 votes. She is now Bihar’s youngest MLA at 25 years old.
The Results
Nitish Kumar of NDA is set for his fifth consecutive term as Chief minister of Bihar after a sweeping victory by the coalition. Out of the 243 seats in Bihar the NDA has won 202 of which BJP has won 89 seats followed by JD(U) with 85 seats. The Mahagathbandhan has won a total of 35 seats with 25 seats won by the RJD and 6 by the INC. Both the INC and RJD narrowly avoided their worst tallies yet, of 4 seats in 2010 and 24 seats in 2010 respectively.
The ruling coalition has won 46.52% of the votes, the BJP accounting for 20.08%, followed closely by the JD(U) with 19.26%, the LJP (RV) with 4.97%, HAM (S) with 1.18% and the RLM with 1.03% of the vote.
The Mahagathbandhan has secured 37.64% of the vote, broken up into 23% by the RJD , 8.71% amassed by the Congress, 4.18% from the Left parties, VIP with 1.38% and the IIP with 0.37%.
Images- ECI