Not conspiracy, political economy explains Bihar results

Election results are not easy to predict, especially in a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system. However, when the difference between the winner and runner-up is as high as 10% of the votes cast, as was the case in Bihar this time, there ought to be some inkling, at least directionally, of what the results could have been.

- By Roshan Kishore and Abhishek Jha

However, the opposition seems to be in denial about why the results are the way they are. Allegations of electoral fraud have started doing the rounds, as has become the pattern after opposition losses in recent elections. Here are three charts that tell us why Bihar results fit perfectly well with the long-term political trajectory of the state.

2025 results are primarily explained by a collapse of the

If there is one election statistic which can explain the shock in the opposition camp after the Bihar election results it is the vote share of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) led Mahagathbandhan (MGB). It actually went up by 0.7 percentage points between the 2020 and 2025 elections, and yet, the MGB's seat share collapsed from 45.3% to just 14.4%. This is primarily a result of the NDA adding 9.3 percentage points to its vote share between 2020 and 2025, not at the cost of the MGB votes, but by making a large dent into what was non-NDA and non-MGB vote in the 2020 elections. The collapse of the non-aligned vote in Bihar is nothing 5 short of spectacular: it has fallen from almost 49% in the 2005 February elections -- the first in which Lalu Yadav's RJD could not secure a majority since 1990 -- to just 15.5% in 2025.