The dust has barely settled on Bihar’s 2025 Assembly elections, but the debates swirling around the landslide victory of the Nitish Kumar-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) show no signs of calming. While the NDA’s decisive win—securing 202 of 243 assembly seats—has been celebrated by supporters, opposition parties have alleged "vote chori" (vote theft), pointing fingers at everything from voter list revisions to the unprecedented surge of women voters.
Central to the controversy is the Election Commission’s special intensive revision exercise (SIR), which, ahead of the election, removed 68.6 lakh names and added 21.53 lakh new electors, shrinking Bihar’s voter lists by a staggering 47 lakh. According to Scroll, this move sparked allegations of manipulation, with opposition leaders claiming the deletions unfairly tipped the scales. Yet, when official booth-level data was analyzed, the numbers told a more nuanced story: in five closely scrutinized villages in Bihar’s Seemanchal region—where more than 20% of electors were initially excluded from the draft voter list—voter turnout actually increased in the 2025 Assembly polls compared to both the 2024 Lok Sabha and 2020 Assembly elections. The winners, too, largely mirrored previous results, suggesting that the deletions may not have played the pivotal role critics feared.
Still, the opposition’s suspicions lingered. The Congress party, for instance, questioned the addition of nearly 3 lakh electors after the SIR roll was finalized, suggesting this late bump was further evidence of irregularities. However, as Scroll points out, such additions are not unusual: electors can be added up until the last day of filing nominations, a practice clearly outlined in the Election Commission’s own orders. In fact, between the publication of the final SIR roll on September 30, 2025 (which listed approximately 7.42 crore electors), and the close of polling on November 11, the rolls grew to 7.45 crore voters. This net addition of 3.34 lakh electors was spread across constituencies, with 10 seats seeing the largest bumps—seven of which went to the NDA, two to the Mahagathbandhan opposition alliance, and one to the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen. In only two cases—Bodh Gaya and Belaganj—did the number of added electors exceed the margin of victory, and those seats were split between the two main alliances.
But perhaps the most transformative—and hotly debated—factor in this election wasn’t on the rolls, but in the voting booths: women. Political analysts, economists, and party leaders alike have zeroed in on the unprecedented surge in female voter turnout and the impact of targeted welfare schemes, particularly the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana. Launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2025, this initiative aimed to boost women’s self-reliance and empowerment by transferring Rs 10,000 directly into the bank accounts of 75 lakh women across Bihar, a move totaling Rs 7,500 crore. The government’s second supplementary budget, presented on December 3, earmarked a staggering Rs 21,000 crore for the scheme, which now counts more than 1.56 crore beneficiaries.
District-level polling data released by the Election Commission on November 12 revealed a dramatic shift: women’s turnout jumped from 59.69% in 2020 to a record 71.6% in 2025. In four districts, including the Muslim-majority Kishanganj, turnout crossed 80%, while men’s participation lagged at 62.98%. In 228 constituencies where female turnout surpassed male turnout, the NDA won 189 seats. In 52 seats where women outvoted men by over 10,000 votes, the NDA captured 44. As Nitish Sharma, co-founder of PASG Advisory, told BW Businessworld, “The 2025 election will be remembered as the moment when women moved from being silent stakeholders to being the primary architects of Bihar’s political direction.”
What drove this surge? According to Pallavi Gupta, Assistant Professor at NMIMS, the answer lies in the economic realities faced by Bihar’s women. “If current income is close to zero, access to health and childcare is patchy and the probability that some grand ‘development’ promise turns into tangible benefits in your own life is low, then a sure Rs 1,000 or 10,000 today is not a 'freebie' and I consider it a risk-minimising, survival-consistent choice,” she explained to BW Businessworld. For many, immediate cash transfers are not handouts, but lifelines in a context of persistent poverty, unreliable public services, and limited economic opportunity.
The data is sobering. Bihar’s literacy rate stands at 74.3%, but the gender gap is stark: male literacy is 82.3% while female literacy trails at 66.1%. The female labor force participation rate, at just 30.5% for those aged 15 and above, is among the lowest in India, well below the national average of 41.7%. According to NFHS-5 (2019-21), 63.5% of women aged 15 to 49 in Bihar are anaemic, further limiting their economic potential. Between 2019 and 2021, a staggering 38.5% of women in this age group had received no formal schooling—the highest rate among Indian states.
Against this backdrop, the appeal of direct benefit transfers becomes clear. As Manoranjan Sharma, Chief Economist at Infomerics Ratings, put it, “The notion that women voters in Bihar ‘chose freebies over development’ is an oversimplification obscuring the reality of chronic underinvestment in basic services. For many households, especially where women make key decisions, cash transfers are not mere handouts; they are critical in mitigating acute liquidity constraints and high uninsured risks such as illness, crop failure, or irregular work.”
Yet, the reliance on short-term schemes has its critics. Economists warn that India’s growing “freebie culture” risks distorting voter behavior and crowding out the long-term investments needed to truly transform Bihar’s economy. The state’s fiscal deficit stands at 6% of GDP, and pre-election schemes accounted for about 4% of GDP—exceeding the capital outlay that could have gone toward job creation, healthcare, or infrastructure. As Emkay Global analysts noted, “Even fiscally prudent states are now in the grip of freebie economics,” with 21 of India’s 29 states breaching the 3% deficit ceiling, much of it driven by election spending.
Still, for many women in Bihar, the calculus is pragmatic. As Gupta noted, “Politicians, of course, design these schemes with electoral payoffs in mind. But from the voter’s perspective, accepting that incentive may still be completely rational. So I’d be wary of language that implies women are being 'bought off' instead of recognising that they are doing a rough cost-benefit analysis under very constrained circumstances.”
Looking ahead, experts argue that the path to lasting change lies in targeted investments in healthcare, education, sanitation, and transport—areas where Bihar has long lagged. Predictable cash transfers, visible public works, and women’s involvement in local planning can help move the needle from immediate survival to long-term empowerment. As Sharma from Infomerics Ratings suggests, the private sector, too, has a role to play by creating local jobs, offering skills training, and providing safe mobility and affordable childcare.
In the end, the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections may be remembered less for the controversies over voter lists or the size of the NDA’s mandate, and more for the quiet revolution at the ballot box—where women, armed with both new rights and new resources, emerged as decisive architects of the state’s political future.
