The State That Outsmarts Pollsters: Bihar’s Voter Mood Is Hard to Read

Bihar has consistently proven to be a challenging state for those attempting to gauge Bihars voters mood. Voting patterns in the state are shaped by a combination of caste alignments, perceptions regarding governance and law and order, and competing development narratives. These overlapping factors often make it difficult for exit polls to accurately assess the public mood.

A look at the previous two Assembly elections highlights this pattern clearly.

In 2015, most exit polls projected a close contest, estimating that the Mahagathbandhan would win around 110–130 seats and the NDA around 100–120 seats in the 243-member Assembly.However, the final results told a very different story. The Mahagathbandhan swept the election with 178 seats, while the NDA ended up with just 58 seats — a margin that none of the exit polls had anticipated.

Five years later, in 2020, the exit polls again misread the situation — but in the opposite direction. The average of major exit polls predicted that the Mahagathbandhan would secure around 120–130 seats, while the NDA was projected to finish near 100–110 seats.The actual result flipped that forecast: the NDA won 125 seats, narrowly retaining power, while the Mahagathbandhan secured 110 seats.

As Bihar moves toward the 2025 Assembly elections, a two-front contest is once again taking shape, with the BJP and JD(U) on one side and the RJD-led opposition alliance on the other. Given the state’s history of electoral unpredictability — and the decisive role that shifting caste coalitions and regional dynamics continue to play — analysts and pollsters are approaching predictions with greater caution.

Whether this time the exit polls manage to capture the state’s political undercurrents more accurately remains an open question.