Analysis | BJP Women Empowerment Playbook Yields Dividend Defying Caste Dynamics
Exit polls keep missing Bihar’s shifting realities, where poverty, women’s agency outweigh old caste formulas, revealing a state redefining what truly shapes its political choices.
By Bilal Bhat
Published : November 14, 2025 at 8:29 PM IST
|Updated : November 15, 2025 at 1:37 PM IST
Before it becomes an agreed reality that the exit poll philosophy has reached a level of redundancy, given how consistently they have gone wrong in gauging the pulse of voters, the pollsters should find a better way to sample. Whether it is for the general elections or the state assembly polls, the margin by which pollsters portray the performance of contending parties goes upside down on the day of judgment.
It seems they don’t take into account the changing circumstances that impact the overall political landscape and bring about a new order. The poorest state of India, which is Bihar, cannot decide its fate purely on a caste basis. It may have existed there for a while before other prominent issues gained popularity, but a lot of water has flown under the bridge since then.
More than caste, the biggest issue people face is poverty, which needs to be addressed, one of the emerging factors that comes to mind after looking at the Bihar election results. More than promises, people believe in the quick delivery of results. Bihar is evolving into a state that considers a lot of issues which they see are important in their lives and must be appropriately represented by the people they choose. The NDA’s mandate makes it evident that Bihar voters, like everyone else, want a better life. Filling women’s coffers was like encouraging and recognising nari shakti, which wasn’t visible throughout the Mahagathbandhan parties’ campaign. The women reciprocated with a massive victory by voting for the NDA and persuading their men to vote for them.
It is pertinent to mention here that some women would face the wrath of men after they came home drunk, and Nitish Kumar came as a Messiah for them. He made the state dry, which greatly lessened their pain. Violence against women was mostly attributed to alcohol, as per the National Family Health Survey. Although there are other contributing factors, alcohol was the primary one.
With the exception of seats where Muslims are significant in number, voters have mostly shown their interest in a better life. There are and will continue to be areas where wider community interests, ideology, etc., will matter. But a state with nine divisions, bordering Nepal, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh can’t be seen using a uniform lens; it must be viewed through a progressive lens to balance its diversity. When Gen Zs of Nepal were turning things around, people in the border areas of Bihar were observing and processing the change; when West Bengal was dealing with gruesome violence against women, people here were keenly watching; and when Jharkhand was still breathing naxalism, people in south Bihar were recalling the dark days and praying for it to come never again in their lives.
It may take one or two more rounds of elections to straighten the curves in Bihar before pollsters come out of this illusion that a single factor determines the fate of Bihar polls. Balrampur and Samastipur are not comparable given their distinct dynamics. In Balrampur, two Muslim candidates in the top three spots shared more than 1.68 lakhs. The seat went to a woman from a different community who polled 389 votes and 1,318 votes more than her two nearest rivals. Among 18 candidates in the fray, only six were from another community. As for Samastipur, there were only two Muslim candidates - one finished second with 81,853 votes and no other candidate in the fray polled more than his defeat margin.
Similarly, Kasba cannot be put to the test against the Patna Sahib constituency as they are different from each other. In Kasba, the Muslim candidate fielded by the AIMIM finished third behind another Muslim candidate from the RJD, polling three times the margin of victory and helping the LJPV candidate, who is a non-Muslim, win the seat. That was not the case in Patna Sahib, where the Muslim candidates failed to make any dent.
In the same way, South Bihar has its own issues, which are far different from the issues people face living in Motihari. One commonality each one of them had was that the current government could comprehend was to provide them with immediate relief.
For someone whose monthly income is three thousand rupees, getting ten thousand is a big deal. Furthermore, the NDA was fighting a unified battle against a divided camp, Mahagathbandhan. The seat sharing that the NDA decided was scientific and rational. The Chirag Paswan-led LJPRV in the previous elections ate into the JDU votes, which wasn’t the case this time. The JDU, the BJP and the LJPRV supported one another against the divided camp of the Mahagathbandhan. Congress asked for a pie which was much more than its stomach could handle. Lalu had to agree on something that was unnatural, given the kind of fight they were in. He was fighting on three fronts at a time, one within his family, one against his allies and one against the NDA. Even after the seat-sharing announcement, they had seats where they fought against each other, calling it a friendly match.
The NDA had done its homework well, as always, before going public with seat-sharing announcements. On the contrary, the Mahagathbandhan or the INDIA bloc was divided till it neared the poll dates. The RJD leaders were unhappy with seat seat-sharing agreement with Congress, but projecting Tejashwi Yadav as the Chief Minister face of the alliance came as an antacid and gave them a temporary relief, though their concerns were genuine. They foresaw Congress candidates losing badly.
As for the BJP, it has emerged as the single largest party, winning 89 seats of the 101 seats it fielded its candidates. It’s Ladli Behen experiment in Madhya Pradesh bore fruit. It was repeated in Maharashtra. The Bihar version was all the more impressive. The party, therefore, would have to keep pulling tricks out of its sleeves to strike a chord with the voters to remain an ‘election juggernaut’, a term that best describes its electoral performance.
