Bihar Provincial Assembly Elections Boost Modi’s Populism

In his incisive analysis, Dr. Amir Ali, examines how the 2025 Bihar Provincial Assembly elections have reinvigorated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s populist dominance in Indian politics. Situating Bihar’s results within India’s shifting electoral landscape, Dr. Ali shows how the BJP-led coalition’s victory undermines expectations of anti-incumbency following the party’s 2024 parliamentary setback. He critically engages controversies surrounding the Election Commission of India, welfare-driven electoral strategies, and the shrinking space for opposition politics. Drawing on his broader scholarship on populism, democracy, and sovereignty, Dr. Ali warns that the consolidation of power from “Parliament to Panchayat” raises serious concerns for institutional autonomy and democratic accountability in what V-Dem has termed an “electoral autocracy.”

Amir Ali*

The recently concluded election in the eastern Indian province of Bihar in early November 2025 was a shot in the arm for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Bihar is one of the poorest provinces of the country with a per capita income that is a mere fraction of richer provinces. High unemployment levels result in outflux of unskilled workers. Among the controversies that plagued the Bihar assembly elections was the running of special trains carrying Bihari workers from the northern province of Haryana that abuts the national capital Delhi, back to their native province, to ensure they could vote.

Despite its economic backwardness, Bihar is politically very important. The ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is today the dominant political party in the country. It has replaced the earlier one-party dominant system of the Indian National Congress, that led India’s freedom struggle against British colonial rule. The BJP is at the center of the ruling coalition called the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). In the province of Bihar, the coalition partner of the BJP is the Janata Dal United JD(U) whose party boss, Nitish Kumar has been Chief Minister since 2005. Nitish Kumar is a leader whose political origins lie in samaajwaad or Indian socialism. Mr. Kumar is also known for his constant political flip-flops as he has constantly switched sides to continue in power. Back in 2015 he successfully fought the election in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). This time the RJD was competing against him, winning only 25 seats.

The alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal United JD(U) performed surprisingly well, winning together with other smaller allied parties, 202 seats in the 243-seat legislative assembly. The result was a major blow for the opposition I.N.D.I.A alliance that includes the once powerful Congress Party. The resounding victory of the ruling BJP led alliance means a further political consolidation, captured in a stated desire to prevail over Indian politics from ‘Parliament to Panchayat’ (the lowest tier of local self-governance at the level of the village). The ruling BJP has also expressed an intent to rid the country of the supposed baleful presence of the Congress that is captured in the Hindi expression of a Congress mukt Bharat (India/Bharat rid of the Congress). 

The shrinking of the opposition becomes a cause for concern, especially as India has been characterized by the V-Dem institute as an ‘electoral autocracy.’ The provincial assembly election in Bihar needs to be seen in the backdrop of the 2024 parliamentary elections in which the ruling BJP suffered a setback as its numbers declined from 303 in 2019 to 240, forcing it into relying on significant support from coalition partners. This was viewed by the opposition as signaling a waning of the electoral dominance of the BJP.

Two Developments in the Run-up to the Election

The run up to the Bihar assembly election in early November 2025 was marked by two developments. The first was the announcement by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, four months prior to the elections. This became controversial on account of the onerous demands of documentation put on voters to ensure their names were on the voters’ list. The opposition immediately protested and appealed to the Supreme Court of India, which did not stop the SIR exercise, but demanded lenient consideration in terms of the documents that voters were required to produce. The opposition had hoped to make the revision of electoral rolls an issue in the elections, suggesting in their campaigns that the ruling BJP was conniving with the Election Commission of India to ‘steal’ votes. 

The aspersions cast on the Election Commission of India are unfortunate. It is a constitutional body that under Article 324 of the constitution is guaranteed autonomy from the executive to conduct free and fair elections. The Election Commission of India has generally been above board in terms of its conduct with a succession of Chief Election Commissioners, who head the institution, taking independently assertive positions against ruling governments. If the opposition’s allegations about lack of autonomy of the Election Commission are true, then this would tend to underline the anti-institutional element, characteristic of much populist politics that while exaggeratedly elevating the purity of the people, excoriates the very institutions that mediate the people’s will. The leader of the opposition, Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party has conducted a series of explosive press conferences where he has displayed proof of the Election Commission of India’s ‘conniving’ with the ruling BJP to ensure the latter’s electoral victory.

The second significant development in the run up to the elections was the decision taken by the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar to announce the disbursal of ten thousand rupees (95.75 Euros) for women voters under a scheme to promote women’s self-employment. Analysts felt that this was decisive in terms of winning the elections for the ruling NDA coalition. Opponents of the ruling coalition cried foul at the decision announced in late September 2025. This was just before the model code of conduct came into place. Such announcements are seen as an infringement of the model code of conduct as they may induce votes in favor of the ruling party.

Whither Anti-incumbency?

The election results from Bihar impart momentum to the ruling BJP led coalition as the year 2025 closes. Next year in early 2026, provincial assembly elections are due in two more states further to the east of Bihar, in the provinces of West Bengal and Assam. The elections result in Bihar, especially considered in the light of the electoral setback that the BJP suffered in the parliamentary elections at the federal level in early 2024, seem to put paid to the phenomenon of anti-incumbency which refers to the uphill task that an incumbent party experiences as it seeks re-election. The BJP’s dominance seems to defy what in India is called the law of anti-incumbency.

(*) Dr. Amir Ali is a faculty member at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Prior to this he taught at the Department of Political Science, Jamia Millia Islamia University. He was Agatha Harrison Memorial Visiting Fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford between the years 2012 to 2014. He has authored two books South Asian Islam and British Multiculturalism (Routledge, 2016) and Brexit and Liberal Democracy: Populism, Sovereignty and the Nation-State (Routledge, 2022). His areas of teaching, research and writing are political theory, multiculturalism, group rights, British politics and political Islam. His regularly written political commentary on Indian and global politics has appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly, Al Jazeera English, the Indian periodical Outlook and in Indian broadsheet newspapers such as The Indian Express, The Hindu, and The Telegraph.