The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has won the 2025 Bihar Assembly Elections and a large part of the credit, according to observers, goes to women voters who opted for the Alliance. A slew of political initiatives by incumbent chief minister Nitish Kumar has made Bihar’s women his loyal vote bank.
Topping the list is, of course, the popular Dus Hazari (‘Ten Thousand’) cash benefit scheme specifically aimed towards the state’s women. But that is not all.
With 35 million voters, half of Bihar’s electorate, women play a decisive role in elections. Women in Bihar outvoted men by 8.8 per cent in the 2025 assembly polls. There were 4.4 million more women voters this time, than the last polls in 2020, according to Election Commission data.
Women in Bihar, most of them poor, were doubtless happy and expressed praise for Kumar after they got a cash benefit of Rs 10,000 directly in their bank accounts under the Mukhya Mantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana (Chief Minister Women’s Employment Scheme).
The cash benefit was provided to 27.7 million women in the state under the scheme, which promises financial aid to one woman from every family in Bihar. Eligibility criteria are minimal: the applicant and her husband must not be income tax payees. It means women from socio-economically backward and marginalised sections are entitled for it.
An activist described the scheme as the most attractive pre-poll offer ever made to women in Bihar. Never before, he noted, has such a direct cash incentive of Rs 10,000 been announced for women ahead of elections. He called the scheme a potential “game changer.”
Former minister and senior Janata Dal (United) leader Neeraj Kumar told Down To Earth that Kumar, during his long tenure (2005-2025) initiated several schemes for women’s empowerment.
These schemes created a veritable vote bank for Kumar over the years. For instance, his government provided free bicycles to school-going girls under the Mukhyamantri Balika Bicycle Yojna and 50 per cent reservation for women in Panchayati Raj institutions.
His government also provided 35 per cent reservation for women in all government jobs in the state and also launched the Mukhyamantri Kanya Utthan Yojna to increase girls’ enrollment in schools.
Kumar also created a strong support base among more than 14 million Jeevika Didis of Self-Help Groups under the livelihood programne. They were mostly from poor families and benefited from the scheme that was started in 2006 with help from the World Bank.
Kumar also imposed a total liquor prohibition in the state that he claimed was done on the demand of women. The state government has repeatedly stated that liquor prohibition has reduced domestic violence.
Several research studies over the past one-and-a-half decades have highlighted that a large number of women, cutting across caste and religion, voted for Kumar due to the implementation of women-centric policies in the state.
Take for instance, the 2020 Bihar assembly polls. Despite a close fight between the NDA and the opposition Mahagathbandhan, women outvoted men in 167 of the 243 assembly constituencies, most of them in the flood-prone Kosi-Mithilanchal region. The NDA won more seats than the Magagathbandhan in that region, enabling it to form the government.
According to official data from the Election Commission of India, women’s voter turnout in Bihar was higher than men’s in the 2020 Lok Sabha elections. Data shows that 59.7 per cent of women voters cast their votes, compared to 54.7 per cent of male voters. In the 2019 Bihar Assembly elections, about 59.58 per cent of women voters voted, compared to 54.45 per cent of male voters.
In the 2015 elections in the state, 60.5 per cent of women voters cast their ballots, compared to 53.3 per cent of men. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, 57.66 per cent of female voters turned out to vote, compared to 55.08 per cent of male voters.
In the 2010 assembly polls, 59.6 per cent of women voted, compared to 54.9 per cent of men.