A detailed analysis of the Decline of Congress and RJD in the Bihar Assembly Elections 2025, explaining how scattered vote share, weak strategy, and shifting voter behavior shaped the final outcome.
By Dr. Mohammad Farooque, Qalam Times News Network
Kolkata– 16 November 2025
Why Vote Share Doesn’t Always Turn Into Power
Decline is the one word that captures the mood after the 2025 Bihar Assembly Elections—a reminder from the unforgiving mathematics of Indian politics that winning votes isn’t enough; what matters is where those votes land. Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) seemed to ignore this basic truth, and the result was a political collapse neither can afford to brush aside.
Here’s the thing: Congress turned its campaign into an example of how political structures crumble when they drift away from ground realities. The party contested 61 seats and managed to win only six—its second-worst performance since 2010. On Saturday, senior leaders met in Delhi under Mallikarjun Kharge’s leadership to dissect the disaster. Rahul Gandhi, K. C. Venugopal, and Ajay Maken all spoke, yet, as usual, no firm decision surfaced. The leadership still hesitates to accept responsibility, leaning instead on familiar claims of “vote theft.” That word “Decline” showed up again—this time in the unspoken acknowledgment that the party machinery is worn out and disconnected.
Rahul Gandhi insisted the elections were unfair from the start, but the ground reality says something else: people simply didn’t trust Congress. Their anti–vote-theft campaign made noise but never turned into a narrative people could hold on to. When the organisation is hollow, when local leadership is missing, and when the grassroots network has thinned out, slogans and accusations can’t win you seats. Decline becomes inevitable.
RJD’s story followed a different path but ended in the same ditch. Contesting 143 seats, Tejashwi Yadav’s party won 25—but surprisingly secured the highest vote share in the state, a hefty 23 percent. On the surface this looks like strong support, but in political math, it was useless. Their votes were spread too thin across too many constituencies. Where concentration was needed, votes scattered; where support was strong, it wasn’t strong enough. And so the Decline took shape—not as a lack of voters, but a lack of strategy.
Meanwhile, Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) played a sharp and focused game. With only 4.97 percent vote share, it captured 19 seats—rewriting the election script. Its approach was simple: concentrate your strength, not your emotions. Wherever they contested, they contested to win. The contrast with RJD couldn’t be clearer.
Another factor reshaping this election was the shifting behavior of women voters. Cash assistance under government schemes redirected their political preference, and RJD felt the full impact of this shift. At the same time, the Muslim vote—once considered Tejashwi’s backbone—moved towards Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, which disrupted RJD’s prospects in at least 20 constituencies despite contesting selectively.
On the other side, the NDA bloc emerged with a commanding 202 seats. BJP won 89, JDU 85, LJP(R) 19, HAM 5, and other allies 4. The message was unmistakable: planning, discipline, and understanding voter psychology matter far more than grand slogans.
Bihar’s election ultimately became a mirror—showing frustrated voters, a fractured opposition, broken alliances, and the strength of a well-coordinated ruling coalition. In the language of numbers, this wasn’t just a loss for Congress and RJD. It was evidence of confused political thinking, organisational weakness, and narrative failure. Politics today isn’t just about emotion; it’s political science with sharp edges. Whoever ignores its arithmetic simply doesn’t make it to the table of power.
