NDA’s historic victory in Bihar
By– Dr Vineeth Thomas, Assistant Professor & Head,Department of Political Science,
SRM University- AP ( Amaravati)
NDA’s decisive mandate in the 2025 Bihar assembly elections can be best understood through the hybrid lens of a gendered moral economy of welfare, a politics of risk shaped by federal fiscal dependence and a shifting everyday experience of the state. The verdict signals not a routine preference for incumbency, but a recalibration of how citizens in a vulnerable state assess stability, aspiration and the consequences of political disruption.
Women formed the linchpin of this political alignment because welfare reached them in ways that reshaped both household economies and their relationship with the state. The transfer of ten thousand rupees into women’s bank accounts by Nitish government for self-employment went beyond liquidity; it enabled small investments in goats, cows and petty trade, circulating state funds through village markets and creating microcapital that women controlled independently of male mediation. This experience of direct economic agency produced a structural rather than transactional trust in government. The everyday state appeared to women as income they could use immediately and visibly, transforming welfare from a distant administrative gesture into a reliable personal entitlement. This economic empowerment merged with a moral dimension shaped by liquor prohibition under Nitish regime. Although enforcement remains uneven, the ban altered the emotional landscape of households long strained by alcoholism, restoring a sense of stability and reducing domestic conflict. For many women, prohibition signalled the state’s willingness to protect their everyday vulnerabilities. When the INDIA bloc hinted at revisiting aspects of the alcohol policy or appeared indifferent to its symbolic significance, the fear was not of legal change but of the possible erosion of domestic peace. Women responded not to political rhetoric but to the possibility that a change in government might unsettle the domestic peace they had begun to trust, a sentiment reflected unmistakably in their record-breaking turnout of 71.6 percent, the highest since 1962.
The moral–economic landscape amplified the quiet but powerful narrative of federal alignment. The narration that an INDIA alliance government might struggle to secure central funds resonated because Bihar has internalised its fiscal dependence, viewing roads, electrification and welfare as products of Centre–State coordination. In such a context, misalignment is seen not as administrative friction but as existential risk. Development is perceived as a flow that could be interrupted, and voters increasingly view the ruling coalition as the channel ensuring this continuity.
Caste too was reframed within this structure of risk. The INDIA bloc continued to rely on a Muslim–Yadav core that once delivered durable electoral strength. But in 2025 caste signalled vulnerability as much as solidarity. Voters sensed that a narrow social base could invite contestation and instability. The NDA’s coalition, by contrast, spread across upper castes, EBCs, segments of OBCs and women across communities. Its breadth appeared as political insurance: a government representing more groups was imagined as more stable and therefore more capable of keeping developmental flows undisturbed.
The opposition’s promises failed within a political climate shaped by welfare, stability and risk. Each major pledge, the 200-unit power subsidy or 100 per cent domicile policy, was swiftly neutralised by the government’s more plausible countermeasures, including 125 free units for low-use households and a women-focused domicile design. These responses felt administratively credible, while Tejashwi Yadav’s government job guarantee for every family appeared unrealistic in a state dependent on migration and informal employment, weakening the INDIA bloc’s appeal.Allegations about voter theft and electoral roll manipulation failed to resonate in an election with record turnout. More damaging were symbolic campaign excesses, including rallies where young boys performed songs celebrating katta and rangdaari, imagery that inadvertently reinforced memories of a political era defined by fear and disorder, an era woman especially had no desire to revisit. This allowed NDA to embody reliability, stability and agility. This perception was amplified by the NDA’s seat distribution arrangements without public disagreement, projecting a coherent and predictable governing formation. The INDIA bloc by contrast projected dissent but not administrative composure. The voters, who have repeatedly experienced political and economic uncertainty in the past, were unwilling to jeopardise the small but real improvements they had begun to see.
NDA’s historic win is therefore not reducible to welfare, caste or leadership. It reflects a deeper political transformation in which the everyday state is experienced through gendered welfare, moral economy and federal dependence. Bihar’s voters chose continuity not because they feared change in the abstract but because they feared the disturbance of a moral–economic compact that now shapes their lives. The NDA recognised this shifting terrain; the INDIA bloc did not. In doing so, Bihar has offered one of the clearest recent lessons in Indian politics, that is, in vulnerable states, the politics of risk eclipses the politics of promise.
