Bihar Assembly Elections 2025 proved to be a record in many ways. Voter turnout surpassed post-independence figures of voter turnout. The NDA alliance fell short of its best performance of 2010 by a margin of 5 seats, when only BJP and JDU had won 206 seats. Another record has been made in the elections. For the first time, not a single independent MLA could reach the assembly. In one election, 33 independent MLAs had reached Bihar Assembly and this time their number has become zero. The trend of reduction in the number of independent MLAs, which started from the year 2000, reached 1 in the 2020 elections and became 0 in 2025.
Bihar Assembly Elections 2025 also shows that voters are voting in a bipolar manner. The space for the third force in elections is continuously shrinking. In the year 2000, other parties and independents together were securing 36.8 percent of the votes, which will be reduced to only 15.5 percent in 2025. In the February elections of 2005, other parties and independents had reached 49.4 percent.
Some data analysts consider the decline in the votes of the third force to be the reason for the crushing defeat of the RJD and the Grand Alliance. In the 2020 elections, other parties and independents had got 25.5 percent votes, which has now reduced by 10 percent to only 15.5 percent. It also has 6 MLAs from AIMIM and BSP. The vote of the Grand Alliance was 37.2 percent in 2020, which increased to 37.9 percent in 2025, that is, but the seats were cleared. The voters of the Grand Alliance remained together. 10 percent votes of the third force went towards NDA, which gave it a decisive lead and a landslide victory.
After Lalu Prasad became Chief Minister
When Lalu Yadav took charge of Bihar in 1990, the number of independent MLAs used to be 30. In 1995, their number fell to 11, but in 2000, with the bifurcation of Bihar-Jharkhand, 20 independents won again. After this, their number kept falling continuously in every election and this time it has reached zero. Only 17 independents could win in the February elections of 2005, 10 in the October elections, 6 in 2010, 4 in 2015 and 1 in 2020. Sumit Singh, the only independent who won in 2020, was made a minister by Nitish Kumar and this time he contested on JDU ticket but he lost.
In the period before Lalu Yadav became the Chief Minister, the number of independent MLAs in the Bihar Assembly was 14 in 1952, 16 in 1957, 12 in 1962, 33 in 1967, 24 in 1969, 17 in 1972, 24 in 1977, 23 in 1980 and 29 in 1985. At that time there were 324 MLAs in the assembly. After formation of Jharkhand, 81 seats went there and Bihar was left with 243 seats. Many veteran leaders of Bihar politics had reached the assembly many times as independents. In this election, independents and rebels influenced the results of many seats, but could not secure their own seats in the House.
Four independents stood second in Bihar, Ritu Jaiswal got the most votes.
In Bihar, four independent candidates stood second. Ritu Jaiswal got the maximum votes. Of the four independents, technically two candidates had the support of the Grand Alliance. Ganesh Bharti in Kusheshwarsthan and Ravi Shankar Paswan in Mohania. Ganesh Bharti got 49244 votes and Ravi Shankar got 57538 votes and he was the runner-up. Among the 4 independents who stood second, 2 actual independent candidates were Ritu Jaiswal and Firoz Ahmed. Rebel Ritu Jaiswal stood second in Parihar with 65455 votes, pushing RJD’s Smita Gupta to third place. In Sikta, JDU rebel Firoz Ahmed brought 50029 votes and pushed CPI-ML’s sitting MLA Birendra Gupta from Grand Alliance to third place.
