Bihar Oppn in 2025: From poll follies to road to recovery

The alliance is entering the 2026 with a question on disunity in its ranks and how it will straighten the curves that emerged before and after elections.

The year 2025 for the Opposition Mahagathbandhan or Grand Alliance(GA) in Bihar started on a hope that it would dislodge the incumbent Nitish Kumar-led NDA government from power. But it ended in despair as the GA was drubbed in the polls and the alliance was disarrayed on the question of seat-sharing, with two of its leading parties -- RJD and Congress -- being on tenterhooks. The alliance is entering the 2026 with a question on disunity in its ranks and how it will straighten the curves that emerged before and after elections.

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, CPI-ML general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya and others during Voter Adhikar Yatra at Dak Bungalow crossing in Patna. (Santosh Kumar/HT)

The alliance boasted a number of big names like RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, his younger son and party’s CM face Tejashwi Yadav, Congress’ star leader Rahul Gandhi and CPI-ML (liberation) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya. All of them were steering a seemingly strong coalition but as the poll neared, the alliance teetered and the picture of fight dimmed so much that the Opposition seemed all but lost the poll before the actual action began.

GA’s Poll Follies

Political observers and top GA leaders feel the GA had played the right moves to checkmate the NDA by riding high on the anti-incumbency factory against the 20-year-old reign of chief minister Nitish Kumar many months ahead of the Bihar polls. The first such move was Tejashwi’s promise of implementing the Main Behan Maan Yojana of giving ₹2,500 to every woman from a poor household every month. Besides this welfare move, that Tejashwi claimed later that it was copied by the Nitish government when it rolled out similar stipends for women, the GA listed various other welfare schemes to increase the allowance for the poorer elderly people , widows , and the physically handicapped. Then, the Opposition led by Rahul Gandhi mounted a spirited campaign against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The Voter Adhikar Yatra, observers feel, struck a right chord with people and drummed up a narrative against the Election Commission of India (ECI) that the Opposition alleged has been working in collusion with the BJP. The buoyancy and confidence in the GA camp was visible. But, the hype hid division, or perhaps it somehow crept in.

“Though, the Voters Adhikar Yatra against SIR saw a mass mobilisation, it sowed seeds of discontent and disunity among RJD and Congress as the RJD camp realised the campaign had given the Congress more visibility. Thererafter, the RJD going ahead with its separate Bihar Adhikar Yatra created a sense of one-upmanship among partners, which was one of the first reasons for the coalition to lose its sheen among people who started viewing the INDIA bloc as a ‘loose’ alliance,” said DM Diwakar, political analyst and former director, AN Sinha Institute of Social Sciences Patna.

Diwakar said that later Tejashwi tried to veer away from overly emphasised SIR yarn and shifted to welfarism and announced schemes like giving jobs to every household, promising higher allowance to senior citizens, widows and physically disabled. Meanwhile, the Congress stuck to its SIR disposition. He said that the SIR began to peter out and its appeal failed to move masses.

Diwakar feels that announcing Tejashwi as CM Opposition CM face too came too late and after signs that the alliance was not one voice on this. On the other hand, the NDA emitted clarity and said in unison that Nitish Kumar will be the face of the alliance. Finally, Diwakar said, the NDA’s decision to dole out ₹10,000 under Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana (MMRY) even when the polls were underway turned women voters towards its side.

In absence of a seat-sharing formula, the Opposition partners ended up fielding candidates against each other in many seats which, according to Amit Bakshi, an economist associated with Bihar Centre for Economic Policy and Public Finance (CEPPF), plummeted its trust deficit in the eyes of voters.

Such follies finally led to the Opposition bloc’s worst drubbing in the history of Bihar and it only fetched 35 seats. RJD that had performed well in 2015 and 2020 polls could only manage 25 seats. However, there was a silver lining. The party garnered around 23% votes -- the maximum by any party. Overall, the Opposition got 1.81 crore votes that was a mammoth number and a defiance of the perception that the Opposition, especially the RJD, was on the brink of losing its traditional voter base of Muslims-Yadavs (M-Y). Similarly, the Congress and Left parties too obtained votes of upper castes, backward and weaker sections.

The Opposition slipped on the seat tally, but it maintained its hold on several sections of society.

“Maybe, we did not manage to get votes from all sections of the society but there has not been much depletion in our core vote base. It’s true, support for us eroded in some seats but it’s not a phenomenon across Bihar. Of course, we made a lot of mistakes and our leadership has realized it,” said a senior RJD leader.

Poll despair a cause of concern

In the weeks after sweeping win of NDA in Bihar, the Opposition RJD and other constituents have lied low without going into normal business of introspecting the reasons behind the poll debacle and dissecting why the entire campaign to portray that there is an “anti incumbency” mood against CM Kumar and BJP-JD(U)-led NDA government fell flat. “We feel, there should have been a meeting of all seven partners of the GA soon after the results came in to discuss the poll debacle. But it did not happen. Even Opposition leader Tejashwi attended the first session of the new assembly for only a few days. There is need for more coordination among partners especially between RJD and Congress,” said a senior CPI-ML (liberation) leader, seeking anonymity.

In the last few weeks, there have been verbal clashes between RJD and Congress leaders with state RJD president even asserting that Congress can always look for the option of going alone in the state, indicating the grand old party was free to exit the Mahagathbandhan.

Murmurings have started over Tejashwi’s long absence from Bihar after the polls with the ruling JD(U) and BJP taking potshots. JD(U) MLC and spokesperson Neeraj Kumar have been asserting that there could be a big upheaval in the RJD in coming months by claiming that 17-18 MLAs out of 25 MLAs of the party were in ‘touch’ with the JD(U) to switch over. But RJD dismisses such assertions.

Road ahead for GA

Poll fatality nonetheless, poll observers feel the RJD-Congress-led GA have a challenge of staying relevant as a strong Opposition by cornering the NDA government on solid agenda like employment, migration and industry instead of temporary issues like campaign against SIR. “The GA, especially RJD, has a foremost task of widening its vote base among youths and women otherwise it would merely remain on the sidelines and lose its status of mainstream force.It is now time for Tejashwi to once forward and take the lead role as defeats and win are part of the game,” Diwakar said.

Bakshi said that as the NDA government in the state is eying to set development on fast track, the Opposition may resort to forging unity among its constituents. “They have to look for a new agenda to impress people that they are not a disunited house. The GA has to play like a team in the coming one year to widen its support base based on development issues of the state to reach out to young voters,” he added.

CPI-ML (liberation) Kunal and some RJD leaders who the HT spoke also averred that the Opposition alliance will survive and as it is need of the hour to corner BJP, the alliance will put up a joint front, even though with some changes.