By Dr. Bobby Luthra Sinha and Dr. Pankaj Kumar Jha
Bihar Elections 2025: As Bihar, the eastern state of India’s politically prominent Hindi speaking belt heads into the November 2025 elections, the state once again finds itself engulfed in a theatre of persuasion-where the political illusion of ‘Viksit Bihar’ (developed Bihar) collides with the hard realities of everyday life.
The dream of a developed Bihar stirs excitement among voters, yet it also induces fatigue among citizens who have heard similar promises for decades. Despite repeated claims of progress, Bihar continues to plateau-or regress on many socio-economic indicators.
Much of the current political conversation revolves around the vocabulary of vikas (development), with leaders promising industrialisation and IT growth to generate employment and reduce migration. But for most Biharis, crumbling schools, unsafe streets, unemployment, entrenched caste hierarchies, and the steady decay of public institutions define the meaning of “development.”
The questions, therefore, are stark:
-What are the issues that truly matter to Bihar’s people?
-Do political parties demonstrate accountability and foresight on these issues?
-And whose imagination will ultimately steer the outcome of Bihar’s 2025 elections—the rhetoric of those seeking power, or the lived realities of voters deciding whom to trust?
Bihar: A Story of Growth Without Transformation, Employment Without Equity
Bihar has evolved into a remittance-based economy rather than an industrial one-a reflection of its deep structural crisis of employment and development. Evidence suggests that the state’s labour sector suffers not just from unemployment, but also widespread underemployment and informality.
According to data from the Ministry of Labour (2022–23), Bihar’s unemployment rate stands at 3.4%, slightly above the national average of 3.2%. But in urban areas, youth unemployment has surged to 10.8%. The private sector employs only 1.9% of Bihar’s youth, compared to the national average of 11.3%, showing a stark lack of opportunities.
As a result, migration has become less a choice and more a survival strategy. Generations of young men-and increasingly women-leave for Punjab, Delhi, and Gujarat, sustaining their families through remittances rather than reforms. Yet, political leaders continue to promise an industrialised Bihar where “no one will need to migrate.”
Industrialisation, however, cannot happen without education, vocational training, and health security for the workforce. Even if those goals were achieved, can migration ever be stopped in a globalised economy? The real challenge, then, is not to prevent migration, but to make staying in Bihar a viable, dignified option.
Missing Education and Healthcare: The Broken Backbone
The twin pillars of education and healthcare-the foundations of any developed society-remain Bihar’s most visible failures. Which political party is addressing these issues seriously?
At the secondary level, Bihar records a 19.5% dropout rate, while nearly half of teaching positions remain vacant. Once the pride of eastern India, Patna University and other prominent colleges have seen a steady decline since the 1990s-symptomatic of institutional neglect and poor governance.
The healthcare sector tells a similar story. Bihar has one doctor for every 2,148 people, double the WHO’s recommended ratio. A 2024 CAG Report on public health infrastructure noted that half the posts in the state’s health department are vacant. Many primary health centres lack basic amenities such as drinking water, toilets, fans, or medical equipment.
The human cost is devastating. In May 2025, an 11-year-old Dalit girl from Muzaffarpur, brutally assaulted and referred to Patna Medical College Hospital, was reportedly left waiting for over four hours before being admitted. The case drew outrage and exposed how caste and class still determine who receives timely care-even in emergencies.
Can any state call itself Viksit without ensuring quality education and healthcare for all?
Crime, Caste, and Floods: Crises of Everyday Life in Bihar
Bihar’s structural backwardness is compounded by chronic law-and-order challenges. In 2022, the state’s crime rate reached 277 cases per 100,000 population. The rise of local “mafias”—in education, real estate, and recruitment—illustrates how deeply corruption and political patronage have penetrated governance.
The empowerment promised by decades of social justice politics has not translated into social safety or dignity. For many Dalit and Mahadalit communities, such as the Musahars, development schemes have produced more paperwork than progress. Literacy in some of these communities remains below 10%, and most families still live in kuccha houses.
The Flood Factor
Nearly 140 of Bihar’s 243 assembly seats lie in flood-prone regions. The embanked rivers—Kosi, Bagmati, Kamla-Balan, Mahananda—flood with relentless regularity, uprooting lakhs of people every year. Bihar accounts for 17% of India’s flood-prone area and 36% of its flood-affected population. Between 1953 and 2020, the state witnessed more than two dozen major flood incidents.
Despite this recurring devastation, flood management and climate resilience rarely feature in electoral debates. Institutional oversight and regulatory capture continue to undermine both governance and disaster preparedness.
Which political party, then, is talking about flood management and resilience in the 2025 campaign?
Free Bihar from the Mafia: A Cry for Governance
Ask an average Bihari what keeps them awake at night, and few will mention IT parks or expressways. They will talk instead of lawlessness, local mafias, floods, and caste-based discrimination.
In 2018, Bihar’s then Governor Satya Pal Malik denounced the state’s teacher-training sector, calling it a “mafia game” run through political patronage. He alleged that a nexus of politicians, middlemen, and corrupt administrators had converted higher education into a rent-seeking enterprise—a microcosm of Bihar’s governance crisis.
Unless this nexus is dismantled, the promise of vikas will remain hollow.
What Do Biharis Really Want? Hope, Hype, or Honest Governance?
At its core, Bihar’s 2025 election is about trust and everyday dignity, not just political realignment. Voters have seen too many political experiments born in idealism and ending in compromise. They want jobs, yes—but also justice in schools, hospitals, and police stations.
Women and girls continue to live under daily insecurity. The dream of a ‘Viksit Bihar’ cannot rest on highways and high-tech parks alone; women’s safety and empowerment must form the core of progress.
Which party, then, is addressing the need to rebuild public education, make health a right rather than a privilege, ensure women’s safety, and break the nexus of caste and crime?
Unless parties address these core developmental issues and deliver ethical, inclusive governance, Bihar’s old and young voters will continue to board Chhath special trains—returning home for festivities, but not for faith in politics.
The Way Forward: From Illusion to Inclusion
Bihar’s story is a mirror to India’s development paradox: high on slogans, low on structural transformation. The state’s future depends on political will that aligns vikas with justice, inclusion, and institutional reform.
A truly Viksit Bihar cannot be built on rhetoric alone—it must rise on the foundation of human dignity, equitable opportunity, and ethical leadership that cannot be bought or sold.