Election Results 2025: Amit Shah Was Right. BJP-Led Alliance Set To Sweep Bihar With 160+ Seats

On November 1 Amit Shah made a prediction.

He told NDTV's Editor-in-Chief, Rahul Kanwal, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA would canter to victory in the 2025 Bihar election. "The NDA will win 160 seats (and) form the government with two-thirds majority," he said at NDTV's Bihar Power Play summit.

He echoed himself a week later, this time telling NDTV's Politics Editor, Vasudha Venugopal, "The way people are cheering for us... I feel people of Bihar are with the National Democratic Alliance... with the BJP. We will go well beyond 160. NDA will get minimum of 160 seats."

And on November 14 that prediction came true. The NDA scored a landslide win over the opposition Mahagathbandhan. At 12.30 pm the BJP alliance was leading in 190 seats.

The Mahagathbandhan, which finished 12 short of the majority mark five years ago, was trounced, picking up just 48 seats as all its members, Tejashwi Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Congress, a three-party Left front, and Mukesh Sahani's Vikassheel Insaan Party, flopped.

On counting day, as the NDA's big win became evident, sources told NDTV of the Shah's behind-the-scenes effort and pointed to nearly 72 hours of negotiation with disgruntled alliance leaders, particularly those who had been denied tickets and were threatening to join rivals.

'For two or three days', sources said, 'Shah did not hold events. He simply met with rebels to persuade them... he worked to keep the NDA united and ensured on-ground coordination between Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party and Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United'.

Sources highlighted Shah's 'micro-planning' role in ensuring a unified NDA.

Hidden in that information is, perhaps, the real story of how the BJP engineered one of its biggest election wins in recent years, a win as important as winning control of Delhi from Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party in February or flipping Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan in 2023.

There was tension all through campaigning with Paswan playing hardball over seat allocation till the last minute. He insisted on a big chunk of seats, basing its demand on a strong showing in last year's federal election - the party won five of five - rather than the 2020 Bihar poll.

Paswan reportedly wanted to contest 40 seats and offered the BJP a veiled warning, telling NDTV "I am like salt on vegetables... I can affect 20,000 to 25,000 votes in every constituency".

The caveat, however, was always that he wished to remain a member of the NDA, a wish underlined by glowing praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And those 'threats' were downplayed by the BJP; party sources said the posturing was to satisfy LJP hardliners.

Eventually Paswan settled for 28 seats.

Sources have highlighted Shah's role in negotiating that agreement, which, in hindsight, was critical. The LJP is on course to win 21 seats in this election, a haul that emphasises the BJP-led alliance's dominance. Had the BJP lost these seats (and the 5.3 per cent vote share), its margin of win today would have been much smaller, allowing for potential instability down the line.

And, while it hasn't been spoken about, Amit Shah would have also handled the JDU and Nitish Kumar, which has had fractious ties with the LJP and Chirag Paswan since the 2020 election.

Back then the LJP contested solo but was tacitly backed by the BJP, and wound up eating into the Janata Dal votes. That led to the party losing its 'big brother' status to its larger ally, a turn of events that left the JDU leaders (and Nitish Kumar) very disgruntled.

Handling Paswan was critical because it wasn't just the JDU that was unhappy with the idea of the LJP's expanded role. The Hindustan Awam Morcha of Jitan Manjhi was also critical of the LJP leader's push for more seats, leading the opposition to speculate on 'rifts' in the NDA.

That talk, it is now clear, has been put to rest.