The Indian National Congress appears locked in a severe decline in the 2025 assembly elections in the eastern state of Bihar, with early tallies pointing to a sharp drop in its influence and vote-share compared with previous years. The two-phase poll, held on November 6 and November 11, spans all 243 seats and is being closely watched as a barometer of political strength in the region. Live counts show the ruling National Democratic Alliance pushing ahead across many constituencies, while the main opposition block, the Mahagathbandhan which includes the Congress, is lagging behind. These preliminary trends amplify concerns within Congress that it may secure only a handful of seats, repeating its poor showing in 2020.
The Congress entered the election under duress, having accepted a greatly reduced tally of constituencies to contest. Its central election committee reportedly finalised candidates for around 23 seats, down from the 70 it fielded at the last state election, amid pressure from its MGB allies. The party’s decision to limit its footprint reflects a lack of confidence in translating past presence into actual gains this cycle. Analysts say the Congress ran little ground machinery of its own, instead relying on alliance partners such as the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Communist Party of India Liberation to bolster its reach—an arrangement that now appears to have failed to generate momentum.
Vote counting at 9 am showed the NDA leading in more than 140 seats with a comfortable margin over the MGB in early rounds, signalling a strong start for the ruling coalition. Meanwhile the Congress was recorded as leading in just seven seats at that juncture. The weak showing underscores the party’s inability to reclaim the kind of support it once commanded, particularly among core constituencies such as upper castes and women voters, where it is being outflanked by the NDA’s targeted programme grain. Furthermore, the Congress struggled to gain ground in tell-tale battleground regions such as Tirhut, Mithilanchal and Shahabad, where caste arithmetic, regional issues and welfare schemes remain central to voter choice.
Multiple factors explain the Congress’s downward trajectory in Bihar. First, the party has lacked a distinctive message tailored to local economic and social stressors; youth unemployment and migration remain chronic issues in the state, and the Congress has not credibly articulated a fresh prescription beyond its alliance platform. Second, its dependence on seat-sharing with stronger regional partners meant it fielded fewer strong local candidates of its own. Third, the Congress’s campaign faced structural challenges: internal seat-sharing disputes, limited ground organisation and a shifting voter alliance that increasingly gravitates towards the NDA’s welfare centred narrative.
By contrast, the NDA strengthened its position by combining the long-established regional leadership of Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal with aggressive outreach to women via schemes such as the “Mukhyamantri Mahila Rojgar Yojana”. Analysts highlight that for the NDA the women’s vote has once again become pivotal, with early data showing turnout among women significantly surpassing that among men, thereby bolstering the coalition’s edge. Further, the BJP-JD partnership allotted each party the same number of constituencies for the first time, signalling an internal shift in alliance dynamics and placing the JD in a stronger relative position.
In this landscape the Congress finds itself squeezed between a resurgent ruling coalition and a more assertive regional opposition. The RJD, under Tejashwi Yadav, has sought to fill the opposition void, promising a new social coalition to break the NDA’s hold, but the early count trends indicate that the Congress has failed to galvanise sufficient independent strength to secure a meaningful comeback. Opponents point to the Congress’s faltering base as one of the key reasons the MGB remains well behind the NDA in seat projections, even as the RJD leads the bloc.
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