New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal (United)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is set to form the government in Bihar again, sweeping up 206 of the state’s 243 seats. The Mahagathbandhan (MGB) faces its biggest electoral upset in the state, winning only 32 two seats, and the Congress party has been restricted to single digit. The Rashtriya Janata Dal too has won only 25 seats – down massively from the 75 it won in 2020.For the BJP, this election has marked a turning point in Bihar – it has emerged as the single largest party, with 89 seats compared to the JD(U)’s 84. Since the NDA had been careful not to declare Nitish Kumar as the chief ministerial face, despite pressure from JD(U) leaders, it remains to be seen which party the next chief minister will come from, and whether Nitish’s lasting popularity will mean he serves yet another term.Notably, Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) has also performed exceedingly well. The party has won 19 out of the 29 seats it contested.Earlier, intense drama unfolded on the evening of November 13, when the primary opposition RJD alleged that a truck carrying EVMs was trying to enter the district counting centre in Rohtas. It complained of CCTV cameras of strongrooms not working in at least two counting centres.The district magistrate of Rohtas denied the allegation later, saying that the said truck was not carrying EVMs. He did not clarify why an unknown truck was entering the counting centre in the first place.Amidst such high-pitched attention on counting centres by the RJD, which fears “vote chori”, the NDA has already claimed victory and is waiting to celebrate with full preparations in Patna.The 2020 polls, we know, went down to the wire, with the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan lagging behind the NDA marginally. A huge uproar had erupted when NDA candidates won only in the second round of counting, after the RJD had emerged winners in the first round in a few constituencies. Later, the RJD alleged that the EC’s highhandedness in counting had stolen a victory from the opposition alliance.This year, the campaign itself was largely a bi-polar affair with the MGB invoking issues like unemployment and distress migration in Bihar and the NDA trying to alert people of the so-called “return of jungle raaj” – a reference to the poor law and order situation during the governments led by Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi until 2005.Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party turns out to be damp squibAs the votes cast for the 2025 elections are being counted, despite much hype, former political consultant Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party is nowhere close to making a mark in the state’s politics, with most of its candidates losing their deposits. Kishor had held padyatras across the state for over two years trying to raise expectations of electors by advancing a long-term development vision of the state.The incumbent Nitish Kumar held his head high as his supporters, perhaps for the first time, were vociferously vocal in showing allegiance to him, as the opposition took aim at him for his allegedly failing mental fitness. The BJP, during the course of the campaign, did not find its initial canvassing around the issue of alleged “infiltration” working on the ground, and therefore let Nitish and his party Janata Dal (United) steer the ship to attract EBC and Dalit voters. In Bihar, many say that the ballots are cast(e) in stone, but what they miss is that the last four decades in Bihar have seen leaders emerging out of caste-based social justice politics rearranging the old political set up that was monopolised by the so-called “upper caste” social groups. It is this sharp polarisation between the “forwards” and “backwards” that has shaped Bihar’s polity, and elevated leaders like Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar. These veteran leaders, in the last phase of their political careers, are currently overseeing a transition in which new leadership will emerge. Tejashwi Yadav, Prashant Kishor, or even the Congress’s Kanhaiya Kumar represent the new crop of leaders, while the BJP and the JD(U) are currently struggling to find able hands to combat the energetic leaders in the opposition. Some bit of that political flux in the state is likely to reflect in today’s outcome.