Bihar Election Result 2025: Is Nitish Kumar's ₹10,000 magic for women key behind NDA's landslide lead?

Bihar Election Result 2025: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is projected to secure a historic victory in Bihar, as the Bihar election result 2025 was set to be declared on Friday. Counting of votes for the 243-seat Bihar Assembly began in the morning, where the NDA gained an early lead and only strengthened its power from there.

The alliance, comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Nitish Kumar's JD(U), has secured a lead of over 200 seats, according to the latest data from the Election Commission of India (ECI).

Individually, the JD(U) has also delivered a stellar performance in the 2025 Bihar Assembly Election. Compared to the 43 seats it won in 2020, the Nitish Kumar-led party is now leading in 77 of them and has won in six constituencies on the day of the Bihar election result 2025.

In the current trends, the Nitish Kumar-led NDA is leading in a combined total of 204 seats, with BJP leading in 93, JDU in 83, LJP 19, HAM 5 and RLM 4 as per data from the EC at 04:30 pm. RJD leads in 27 seats, Congress leads in four, CPI(ML) lead one, while CPI-M one, taking the total to 33, as per data from the EC on the day of Bihar election result.

Bihar election result 2025: Nitish Kumar's ₹10,000 magic

Nitish Kumar is known for his woman vote bank, with several women voters supporting the JD(U) stalwart in the elections for decades.

The JD(U), led by Nitish, has prioritised Bihar's women when it comes to schemes and policies.

In a post on X, JD(U) shared, “The trust of Bihar's women has triumphed.. The NDA has triumphed, Bihar has triumphed..(Jeeta hai Bihar ki mahilao ka vishwaas... jeeta hai NDA, jeeta hai Bihar).”

While Bihar's women already get several perks under the Nitish Kumar government, the JD(U) in the run up to the Assembly elections went a notch higher, that seems to have worked for the party's imminent win this time.

Ahead of the Bihar polls 2025, the government launched the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana, a ₹7,500-crore direct benefit transfer scheme meant for women.

Under this scheme, 1.2 crore women received ₹10,000 each directly into their bank accounts. It was endorsed by PM Narendra Modi himself, who made the inaugural payments at a rally earlier this year.

The ₹10,000 transfer was the cherry on top for the other women-centric schemes in Bihar, including 50% reservation for women in panchayats (2006) and 35% quota in state government jobs (2013).

In the 2025 Bihar election, the number of women voters exceeded that of men. According to EC data, Patna was the only district where the number of male voters exceeded that of female voters. Overall, women's turnout was 71.78%, compared to 62.98% for men.

Trends from last time's Bihar election result also show that Nitish Kumar's party won wherever the share of women voters was more than that of men.