• Source:JND
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Bihar Election 2025: The schedule of the much-awaited Bihar assembly election is likely to be announced by the end of September. While the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will try to repeat its government, the opposition alliance would like to make a comeback after a decade. Several political parties, including BJP, RJD, JDU, and Congress, have a strong presence in the state; however, barring a few occasions, no party has contested the election on its own in the last three decades. The alliance politics has been a compulsion for the parties, as the results were disastrous for those opting to contest on their own.

Earlier in 1990, the Congress contested all 323 seats of undivided Bihar against the coalition of opposition parties called the Jan Morcha. However, the grand old party could only manage to win 71 seats, marking the beginning of the downfall of its politics in Bihar. The BJP contested 315 seats in the 1995 election and became the largest opposition party by winning 41 seats. The Congress also contested 320 seats; however, the grand old party could only manage to win 29 seats.

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Congress contested alone in 2010

The Congress later formed an alliance with Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and stayed in power till 2005. The grand old party decided to contest on its own after a rift with Lalu's party; however, it could only manage to win four seats, its all-time low. Apart from this, Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) also contested 135 seats on its own, managing to win only one seat.

Is Nitish Kumar the X Factor?

The data suggests that having Nitish Kumar's JDU in its alliance has significantly boosted the winning chances for both the BJP and RJD. While the NDA registered a massive victory in the 2010 assembly election, it could not repeat its government as the JDU formed an alliance with the RJD and Congress in 2015. The NDA managed to make a comeback in 2020 after Nitish rejoined his old alliance partner BJP.

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