Bihar Assembly Election 2025

What this countdown tracks

The election to the 243-seat Bihar Vidhan Sabha — the legislative assembly of India's third-most-populous state — held in October and November 2025 on the five-year cycle from the October–November 2020 vote. With approximately 76 million eligible voters, Bihar's election is the largest single Indian state ballot of the 2025–26 cycle and a defining test of the NDA-versus-Mahagathbandhan alignment ahead of the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.

About this election

The 2025 vote was contested between the National Democratic Alliance — Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (United) under Nitish Kumar, with smaller allies HAM-S and LJP(RV) — and the Mahagathbandhan opposition coalition led by Tejashwi Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Indian National Congress, the CPI(ML)L, CPI and CPI(M).

Nitish Kumar's January 2024 alliance switch from the Mahagathbandhan back to the NDA — his ninth such realignment — set the stage for the 2025 contest. The Election Commission's mid-2025 Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, which removed approximately 6.5 million names, was challenged at the Supreme Court and became a defining controversy of the campaign.

The Bihar caste census released by the state government in October 2023 — the first comprehensive caste enumeration since 1931 — set the demographic backdrop, with Extremely Backward Classes at 36.0 percent, OBCs at 27.1 percent, Scheduled Castes at 19.7 percent and Scheduled Tribes at 1.7 percent of the population.

Key issues

The 2025 campaign weighed the NDA's record on the Saat Nishchay-2 development programme, law-and-order under the Nitish Kumar government, the migration question that drives an estimated 15 percent of Bihari adults to seek work outside the state, the post-caste-census reservation expansion that the Patna High Court struck down in mid-2024, and the Mahagathbandhan's promised one-job-per-household guarantee.

Past results

• 2020: NDA 125 seats (BJP 74, JD(U) 43, others 8); Mahagathbandhan 110 (RJD 75, Congress 19, Left 16); LJP 1 — Nitish Kumar continued as CM despite JD(U) reverse.
• 2015: Mahagathbandhan 178 (RJD 80, JD(U) 71, Congress 27); NDA 58 (BJP 53, allies 5) — Nitish Kumar's grand-alliance term.
• 2010: NDA 206 (JD(U) 115, BJP 91); RJD 22, Congress 4 — Nitish Kumar's first majority.

How to follow

The Election Commission of India and the Bihar Chief Electoral Officer published results at results.eci.gov.in and ceobihar.nic.in across phased polling. NDTV India, ABP News, Aaj Tak and Republic Bharat carried Hindi coverage; The Indian Express, The Hindu and Hindustan Times ran major English print coverage. Counting day produced the conclusive count by evening IST.

Related countdowns

Bihar's 2025 vote sat ahead of the Tamil Nadu assembly election, Kerala assembly election and Assam assembly election. For mid-cycle Hindi-belt context see the Madhya Pradesh assembly election and Rajasthan assembly election.

FAQ

When was the Bihar 2025 election? Phased polling on 10 November 2025 with counting on 14 November 2025. Who ran? NDA (BJP, JD(U), HAM-S, LJP(RV)) under Nitish Kumar versus Mahagathbandhan (RJD, Congress, Left) under Tejashwi Yadav. Why does this election matter beyond India? Bihar is India's poorest large state by per-capita income but its third-largest electorate; its political alignments shape national NDA-versus-INDIA arithmetic. What was the SIR controversy? The Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision of Bihar's electoral rolls in mid-2025 deleted 6.5 million names; the Supreme Court heard challenges through August 2025.