In a sharp take on one of my reports on the day the Bihar election result was out, one of ThePrint’s subscribers, @sankalp6872, posted: “At some point, the BJP will have its own CM, but this opportunistic political punditry needs to be called out. How come none of these ‘seasoned’ veterans were able to spot a ‘tsunami’ so large….Reading the pulse of the people is NOT difficult. However, it cannot be done under the influence of Yogendra Yadav’s homegrown leaves.”
I must admit I didn’t really enjoy reading it. And why blame Yogendra Yadav for the failures of us journos? Sankalp did make a fair point (regardless of my bias in favour of ThePrint subscribers). Many of us did see the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) having an ‘edge’ in this election, but never saw the ‘tsunami’ coming.
Let me start with an excuse, first. The poll result must have surprised Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the BJP’s chief strategist, too. Just a few days back, at party MP Anil Baluni’s Igas festival celebration, Shah had declared to reporters that the NDA was going to secure 160 seats. The final tally was 202. He was expecting a gentle wave, not a tsunami. It was not that caste factor or identity politics melted away in this election, something journalists were blind to. Look at the vote shares of the BJP, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress, the Lok Janshakti Party (RV) and others. They had secured more or less the same in the 2020 Assembly election as well.
Only Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) increased its vote share by around 4 percentage points from 2020, but that hardly signals a tectonic shift in Bihar’s caste-centric politics. If at all, the ‘tsunami’ had come in the 2024 Lok Sabha election itself in terms of the consolidation of votes for the NDA, thanks to Chirag Paswan’s return to its fold. It’s evident from The Hindu analysis of the share of votes parties secured in the constituencies they contested in the 2020, 2024 and 2025 elections.
From 42.6 per cent votes that the BJP got in the 2020 Assembly election, its vote share went up to 49.3 per cent in the 2024 Lok Sabha election; it’s 48.6 per cent in the 2025 Assembly election. For the JD(U), these figures were: 32.8 per cent (2020), 46.7 per cent (2024) and 46.3 per cent (2025). For Tejashwi Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, the figures were: 39 per cent (2020), 39.7 per cent (2024) and 38.9 per cent (2025).
Chirag Paswan key factor
Thanks to Chirag Paswan’s return to the NDA and the vote transfer efficiency of its constituent parties, the ruling coalition in Bihar had consolidated and optimised its vote base in the 2024 Lok Sabha election only. This consolidation of votes translated into seats more effectively in the Assembly election. The NDA had a much larger social coalition comprising the extremely backward classes, non-Yadav other backward classes, Dalits, upper castes, etc., who brought about the landslide victory.
The obvious poser at this point would be: where was all this gyan or wisdom before the results? Well, blame it on the ‘confirmation bias’ we struggle so hard to avoid. We heard and saw a series of gaffes and faux pas by Nitish, who didn’t seem to be mindful of what he was saying or doing. Official statistics about robust economic growth under him aside, the nine-term CM’s politics and governance looked uninspiring and self-serving in general perception.
Then there was also the famed poll strategist, Prashant Kishor, who predicted doom for Nitish and the NDA. Who could forget his grand announcement in 2021 that if the BJP won more than 100 seats in West Bengal, he would quit poll consultancy? He was not just another politician. There came the confirmation bias: after all these years, people had to be wanting a change. By and large, during the ground reportage, the people were supportive of Nitish—whether for Rs 10,000 or the overarching social coalition or the pathetic opposition strategy—but that only made one believe that he would probably scrape through even after such massive anti-incumbency. But a landslide victory!
Having said that, how do we apply these learnings from Bihar to the four states — West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala — and one Union Territory, Puducherry that will go to the polls early next year? For now, let’s look at these polls from the BJP’s perspective. There is a secret recipe—single or a combination of magical potions—that the party seems to have discovered in Assembly elections over the last couple of years.
Bihar is not an outlier in terms of the scale of victory against massive anti-incumbency. Look at the results in Madhya Pradesh (2023), Haryana (2024), and Maharashtra (2024)—163 out of 230 seats in MP, 48 out of 90 in Haryana, and the BJP’s highest-ever tally of 132 (232 for NDA) out of 288 in Maharashtra. The BJP secured 48 out of 70 seats in Delhi, too, but Arvind Kejriwal must share the credit in this case.
What’s common about the results in these states and Bihar? The first ingredient of this recipe for success, and probably the most potent, is the poll-eve cash transfer to women—Ladli Behna Yojana in MP, Lado Laxmi Yojana in Haryana, Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana in Maharashtra, and Mahila Rozgar Yojana in Bihar.
The BJP secured a historic win in Gujarat in 2022, winning 156 out of 182 seats, without resorting to freebie politics. But Gujarat is a different case altogether—a real outlier since Narendra Modi took over its reins in 2001. Shah said after the Gujarat victory that the voters had rejected those who promised freebies.
Also read: Bihar rejected Rahul Gandhi’s divisive politics. Voters are nobody’s fools
The freebie USP
It was only after the Congress dislodged the BJP-led government in Karnataka with its five ‘guarantees’ or freebies in 2023 that Modi-Shah decided to beat the opposition with the same stick. Cash transfer, doles, and freebies have now become the BJP’s USP in elections. If voters could be ‘bought’ with freebies, why did it not work for the then Congress-led governments in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh? Because of the crisis of confidence and credibility in the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress. People were responding positively to the Congress’s freebie offers in Himachal Pradesh (2022) and Karnataka (2023) because PM Modi was against the revdi distribution till then. Once he and his party got into the act, voters’ general distrust of the Congress came into play.
So, let’s consider freebies as the first ingredient of the BJP’s recipe for electoral success. The second is its ability to build large social coalitions. See how the BJP has been indulging small parties representing particular castes and communities in every state. PM Modi’s appeal, RSS backbone, Hindutva, nationalism, committed cadre and organisational strength are constant factors, anyway.
“The river Ganga flows to Bengal via Bihar. And the victory in Bihar, like the river, has paved the way for our victory in Bengal,” PM Modi said in his victory speech Friday. What he chose to overlook was that the Ganga flows from Bihar to West Bengal via Jharkhand. In the Assembly elections, since the last Lok Sabha polls, the BJP has suffered a loss in Jharkhand only. It was mainly at the hands of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM)’s Hemant Soren. His partner, the Congress, was virtually non-existent during the poll campaign. What I am driving at is that regional parties remain a tough nut to crack for the BJP. It overcame the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha, but can’t overcome others yet.
Even in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly election, the BJP could hold on to its turf in Jammu only. The National Conference managed to keep the BJP out of the Muslim-dominated Valley. Tejashwi’s RJD is also a regional party, for sure. But he has reduced his party to becoming a replica of Congress, with a frozen vote bank and the same old, unimaginative politics.
Look at the BJP’s adversaries in poll-bound states now. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has managed to stave off the BJP since it emerged as a challenger in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. In West Bengal, too, the BJP sought to coalesce a social coalition, wooing Rajbongshis and Matuas who together constitute around 36 per cent of the Dalits, constituting 23.5 per cent of the total population. The BJP also made inroads among the tribals who constitute 5.8 per cent of the population. These social coalitions, amplified by PM Modi’s appeal, the RSS’s grassroots network and polarisation strategy, did wonders for the BJP in 2019 as it won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats.
Banerjee responded with a greater outreach to the communities the BJP was wooing. For instance, laying thrust on welfare schemes for them and forming the Narayani battalion of the state police, named after the Koch king, Nara Narayan. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the BJP lost to the Trinamool Congress in Koch-Rajbongshi-dominated Cooch Behar, and its victory margins in many other North Bengal seats also came down. As for cash transfer to women, Banerjee increased the monthly payment under the popular ‘Laxmir Bhandar’ scheme early this year, from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 for the general category and from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 for Dalit and tribal communities. Don’t be surprised if there is another upward revision ahead of the election. Look at her government’s push for welfare schemes after 2019. She has been trying to be a step ahead of the BJP, preempting and stalling its moves.
In Tamil Nadu, it’s not just Modi’s appeal and Hindutva that the BJP is relying on. Once projected as a Brahmin-Hindi party in the Dravidian land, the BJP has been empowering backwards-class leaders. Tamil Nadu BJP president, Nainar Nagendran, is a Thevar. His predecessor, Annamalai, is a Gounder. Annamalai’s predecessor, L Murugan, is a Dalit. Before him, it was Tamilisai Soundararajan, a Hindu Nadar. So was her predecessor, Pon Radhakrishnan. Radhakrishnan and Murugan were ministers in the Modi government, while Soundararajan was sent to a Raj Bhawan.
Building these social coalitions as a solid support block is still a work in progress for the BJP. Bihar results may embolden the BJP cadre in Tamil Nadu, but it has a long way to go. As it is, it must ride piggyback on the AIADMK, which is still struggling due to internecine wars and the absence of a charismatic leader. Arrival of Vijay on the political scene can only splinter the anti-incumbency votes. Tamil Nadu CM and DMK chief MK Stalin can afford to smile at PM Modi’s beware-of-Congress call. In Kerala, the BJP has been building a social coalition and making inroads into the dominant Nair and Ezhava communities, but it has a long road ahead in a state that has 46 per cent minorities.
Bihar results should, however, please Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Not just because his polarising politics have been effective in a state where the issue of illegal immigrants touches a raw nerve. Sarma’s personal popularity remains intact. His welfare schemes are equally popular. These factors aside, what must please Sarma the most about the Bihar result is the fact that his primary challenger is the Congress.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)