Bihar Elections 2025: High-voltage campaign for phase 1 polling ends, over to EVMs now

Bihar Election 2025: The high-voltage campaign for the first phase of the Bihar assembly elections, covering 121 constituencies, ended on Tuesday evening, after weeks of acrimonious exchanges, personal attacks, and divisive rhetoric.

Voting for the first phase will take place on 6 November. The second phase is scheduled on 11 November. The results will be declared on 14 November.

Electioneering began in earnest a couple of weeks after the polls for the 243-member assembly were announced on 6 October, with most parties having finalised their seats and candidates. The momentum peaked after the festivities of Diwali and Chhath were over.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the blitzkrieg on behalf of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), with as many as eight rallies, two of which were held on the penultimate day of campaigning, besides a roadshow in Patna, and digital interactions with booth-level workers, and also with women, on the final day of electioneering.

PM Modi began his campaign with a rally at Samastipur, where he also visited the ancestral house of Bharat Ratna Karpoori Thakur. He shared the stage with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the JD(U) president, who vies with arch-rival Lalu Prasad, the RJD president, in claiming to be the true ideological heir to the EBC (extremely backwards classes) icon.

The BJP and JD-U are contesting 101 seats each in the Bihar polls. PM Modi pulled no punches in charging the RJD-Congress combine, the two largest constituents of the INDIA bloc, with “protecting infiltrators” and cautioned the people against “a return of jungle raj”.

His remark that the Congress agreed to name Lalu Prasad's son Tejashwi Yadav as the INDIA bloc's CM candidate, only when RJD put a “katta” (country-made gun) on its head, drew much flak from the RJD leader and former deputy chief minister, who alleged that the language was unbecoming of a prime minister.

The RJD is contesting 143 seats while the Congress has fielded candidates on 61 seats as per the seat-sharing arrangement within the Mahagathbandhan or the INDIA bloc.

Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, also held as many as seven rallies, the last three falling on the concluding day of the campaign.

Gandhi kicked up a political row after he said the Army is “under the control of 10% of the country's population”, referring to the so-called upper castes, on Tuesday, the last day of campaigning for phase one elections scheduled on 6 November.

Rahul Gandhi Targets Modi

Throughout his campaign that began on 29 October, the Congress leader repeatedly accused PM Modi of trying to enact a “drama” during the Chhath festival. He said PM Modi was reportedly to take a dip in the Yamuna, which was too polluted for a bath, and backtracked when it came to light that a puddle had been created at the spot with "clean, piped water".

Modi sought to deflect the criticism by pointing out that Gandhi was “fond of visiting places abroad, but never getting the time to visit Ram temple at Ayodhya”, and his statements were tantamount to an “insult to Chhathi Maiya”.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, a few months shy of turning 75, put an end to speculation about his health with a tireless campaign across the length and breadth of the state. However, his absence from the Prime Minister’s rallies and roadshows over the past few days has provided ample cannon fodder to the opposition, which claims that the BJP is done playing second fiddle to the JD(U) supremo and will try to elbow him out after the elections.

The BJP, which is known for running a star-studded campaign, pulled out its famed heavy artillery. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who has held more than 20 rallies so far, sometimes staying in the state for days, was assisted by cabinet colleagues, including fellow former party president Rajnath Singh and the current chief, JP Nadda

Regional satraps, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his counterparts in BJP-ruled states such as Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Delhi — Himanta Biswa Sarma, Mohan Yadav, Mohan Charan Manjhi, and Rekha Gupta, respectively — were also called into action.

Which seats are voting on 6 November?

The prominent seats that will go to the polls in the first phase are Tejashwi Yadav's Raghopur, Mahua, from where his brother Tej Pratap Yadav is trying his luck with a new political outfit, and Tarapur, from where Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary is fighting the elections.

The other seats in focus in this phase are Alinagar, from where singer Maithili Thakur is fighting the elections on a BJP ticket, Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha's Lakhisarai, Mokama -- where the JD(U) candidate is strongman Anant Singh, who has been arrested in the murder case of his opponent Dular Chand Yadav, and Raghunathpur, where the RJD candidate is late gangster-turned-politician Mohamad Shahabuddin's son Osama Shahab.

Other Union ministers who campaigned in the poll-bound state included Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Piyush Goyal. Former Union ministers Smriti Irani and Anurag Thakur, recognised as crowd pullers, were also seen on the campaign trail.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who canvassed in the state for the first time, held three rallies and a roadshow. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge also campaigned in Bihar.

High-profile murder

Gangster-turned-politician Dular Chand Yadav, who had aligned with Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party, was allegedly killed in a skirmish with supporters of Anant Singh, the JD(U) candidate from Mokama.

The killing had triggered fears of a fresh round of gang-war in the volatile constituency, which is witnessing a straight battle between Singh and RJD's Veena Devi, whose husband Suraj Bhan has been his old rival in politics and the underworld.

Subsequently, the police lodged a case, and Singh, along with a number of his supporters, was arrested and remanded by a court to 14 days in judicial custody.

The sudden development involving a candidate of the ruling party seems to have annoyed its top leadership. Union minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh "Lalan", a former JD(U) president, was booked for asking supporters in Mokama, which falls under his Mokama Lok Sabha constituency, to ensure "opponents stay indoors on the day of voting".

(With agency inputs)