How RJD Lost the Plot: The Story of MGB's Electoral Collapse

The 2025 Bihar Assembly elections delivered a stunning verdict that few political analysts anticipated. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured more than a three-fourths majority, while the Mahagathbandhan (MGB), led by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), suffered a catastrophic defeat. Most shocking was the RJD's performance—the party fell to its 2020 levels, wiping out gains painstakingly accumulated over fifteen years of political consolidation. This wasn't just an electoral setback; it was a complete dismantling of opposition politics in Bihar.

The Narrative That Never Was
In the lead-up to the elections, political discourse focused almost exclusively on the Indian National Congress as the MGB's Achilles heel. The Congress contested 61 seats with nine friendly fights, carrying the baggage of a dismal 27% strike rate from 2020. Media narratives, opposition strategists, and even neutral observers pointed fingers at Congress's organisational weakness, questioning why the RJD allocated so many seats to such an unreliable partner.

However, the post-election analysis reveals a dramatically different story. While Congress did continue its poor form—managing strike rates of just 9-13% against the JDU and BJP, and failing to win a single seat against the LJP—the real catastrophe unfolded elsewhere. The captain of the MGB ship, the RJD itself led by Tejashwi Yadav, failed to steer the alliance in the wake of a storm.

RJD's Devastating Underperformance
The numbers tell a story of comprehensive failure. In direct contests against the Janata Dal (United), the RJD faced 61 battles but could secure victory in merely nine—a strike rate of just 15%. Against the Bharatiya Janata Party, the picture was worse: 51 contests yielded just six victories for RJD, translating to a 12% strike rate. These weren't close defeats; they were systematic rejections by the electorate.

What makes this performance particularly damning is that the RJD couldn't even capitalise on contests against smaller, theoretically weaker NDA partners. Against the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), RJD won only seven out of 19 contests—a 37% strike rate that, while better than against BJP/JDU, still represented a majority of losses. The humiliation deepened when Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) defeated RJD in four out of five direct contests, and the Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) bested them in four out of six seats.

These statistics expose a fundamental truth: the RJD's organisational machinery, its messaging, or its ability to connect with voters had deteriorated significantly. When even smaller regional players could consistently defeat you, the problem isn't your coalition partner—it's you.

The Left's Collapse and Congress's Continued Struggles
The Left Front, which had maintained a respectable strike rate of over 60% in 2020, suffered a complete washout in 2025. Against the BJP, they couldn't win a single seat. Even against the JDU, they managed only two victories out of 18 contests—an 11% strike rate. The BJP versus Left matchup saw a 100% NDA strike rate, with all 13 seats going to BJP, representing a complete ideological and organizational collapse of left politics in Bihar.

Congress's performance, predictably, remained abysmal. Beyond their struggles against JDU and BJP, they demonstrated a complete inability to counter even the LJP, failing to secure even one victory in direct contests. This consistent underperformance across three elections now suggests not a temporary setback but a permanent decline in the party's relevance to Bihar's political landscape.

The Geographic Story: North Versus South
The regional breakdown of results provides crucial insights into how the NDA engineered its landslide. In 2020, the NDA had won 125 seats—86 in North Bihar and 39 in South Bihar, with strike rates of 61% and 38% respectively. The MGB had maintained strongholds in South Bihar, particularly in the Bhojpur/Shahabad and Magadh zones, and held Saran in the North. Patna and Munger had witnessed closely contested battles.

The 2025 results represented a geographic realignment. In North Bihar, the NDA's tally surged from 86 to 114 seats. They not only snatched Saran from the MGB but also consolidated their dominance in the Tirhut and Darbhanga zones. Perhaps most significantly, they made gains in Seemanchal—a region traditionally favorable to secular parties—due to the "Owaisi factor," where AIMIM's presence split anti-NDA votes and damaged MGB.

The southern transformation was even more dramatic. The NDA's South Bihar tally exploded from 39 to 88 seats. The BJP swept through Magadh and Bhojpur, completely reversing the 2020 trend. This reversal can be attributed to two strategic master strokes: the inclusion of Chirag Paswan's LJP faction in the NDA fold and the successful management of discontent among key voting blocks, particularly the Rajput and Kushwaha communities which were at war during general elections 2024.

The Collapse of the MY Fortress: A Social Coalition Crumbles
Perhaps the most devastating aspect of the RJD's defeat was the disintegration of its supposedly impregnable Muslim-Yadav (MY) vote bank—the bedrock upon which Lalu Prasad Yadav had built his political empire three decades ago. The data is stark and unforgiving: MGB candidates from the Muslim-Yadav communities posted strike rates of merely 17-18%. Let that sink in—candidates from the communities that were supposed to be the RJD's natural constituency, who should have enjoyed overwhelming support from their own communities and sympathy votes from others, were losing more than four out of every five contests.

While the MGB's social coalition crumbled, the NDA demonstrated a winning social coalition that cut across traditional caste fault lines. The strike rates by caste among NDA candidates reveal a meticulously constructed alliance that left no community behind. At the pinnacle stood Kurmi and Other Upper Caste candidates with a perfect 100% strike rate—every single one of these candidates won. Brahmin candidates achieved a 92% strike rate, SC-ST 88% and EBCs 84%, creating an umbrella of various caste groups.

The Verdict
The 2025 Bihar elections weren't lost because Congress underperformed—that was expected. They were lost because the RJD, the supposed champion of social justice and the natural pole of opposition politics in Bihar, failed spectacularly to perform its core function: winning elections. When your strike rate against main opponents hovers around 12-15%, when smaller parties consistently defeat you, and when your geographic strongholds crumble, the problem runs deeper than coalition arithmetic.