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By:

Akhilesh Sinha

25 June 2025 at 2:53:54 pm

Women’s Verdict, Modi’s Momentum

A surge in female turnout and a fractured opposition deliver the NDA a sweeping mandate and bury Bihar’s old spectre of jungle raj Patna: A powerful combination of record female turnout, a fractured opposition and voter preference for stability propelled the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to a sweeping victory in the Bihar Assembly election results on Friday. Years of targeted welfare for women, coupled with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign pull and Nitish Kumar’s reputation for...

Women’s Verdict, Modi’s Momentum

A surge in female turnout and a fractured opposition deliver the NDA a sweeping mandate and bury Bihar’s old spectre of jungle raj Patna: A powerful combination of record female turnout, a fractured opposition and voter preference for stability propelled the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to a sweeping victory in the Bihar Assembly election results on Friday. Years of targeted welfare for women, coupled with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign pull and Nitish Kumar’s reputation for orderly governance, crystallised into a decisive mandate for the BJP-JD (U) led NDA. In stark contrast, the opposition Mahagathbandhan led by Tejashwi Yadav’s RJD, hobbled by infighting and an incoherent message, collapsed to a little over 30 seats while the NDA surged past 200 – echoing its landslide win of 2010. The 2025 election was remarkable not merely for its outcome but for its mechanics. Turnout had reached an unprecedented 67 percent with women voting at staggering levels – 72 percent, roughly ten percentage points higher than men. For the first time, no booth required repolling, a rarity in a state once synonymous with intimidation and fraud. For the fifth time, Kumar secured the Chief Minister’s office, buoyed by female voters whose loyalty has only deepened after 18 years of his stewardship. The NDA’s parties - the BJP, the Janata Dal (United), the Lok Janshakti Party (Ramvilas) and the Hindustan Awam Party - swept across the state’s cultural and linguistic belts, from Magadh and Shahabad to Angika, Mithilanchal, Tirhut and Seemanchal. The Mahagathbandhan comprising the RJD, Congress, Left parties and VIP was routed in each of these belts. Key electorate Women were the fulcrum of this realignment. Since 2005, a cocktail of welfare schemes, prohibition, expanded livelihoods through the ‘Didis’ and a nudge towards entrepreneurship has steadily detached women from memories of the lawlessness once tagged as jungle raj. The NDA’s slogans, including ‘Badhiya to hain Nitish Kumar,’ found their most enthusiastic audience among them. Wherever Modi campaigned, his rallies turned into consolidating machines. Voters also rewarded continuity as Nitish Kumar’s claims of good governance and steady development resonated more strongly than the RJD’s attempts to revive anxieties about their past. The RJD’s aggressive counter-narrative merely reminded voters, especially women, of the years when physical insecurity was routine. Migrant women in particular recoiled from any hint of that era returning. Some younger voters flirted with Tejashwi Yadav’s promise of a government job for every household, but the broader youth electorate dismissed it as implausible and instead favoured the NDA’s pledges of industrial expansion. The opposition’s disarray compounded its woes. Seat-sharing quarrels among alliance partners led to ‘friendly contests’ in at least 11 constituencies including Kahalgaon and Bachhwara in which the Mahagathbandhan failed to win a single seat. The Congress and the Left were sidelined by an RJD intent on maximising its own tally, resulting in lethal self-sabotage. Rahul Gandhi added to the alliance’s burdens. His attempts to stoke fears of ‘vote theft’ came a cropper and his messaging on OBC issues rang hollow in a state ruled for decades by leaders from those very communities. A poorly timed foreign trip and a clumsy remark about Chhath - one of Bihar’s most sacred festivals - further alienated voters. His rhetorical ‘hydrogen bomb’ misfired, leaving the Congress with just one seat. The Mahagathbandhan’s caste calculus, once its bedrock, was dismantled by voters who backed NDA candidates even in areas dominated by Yadavs and Muslims. Tejashwi Yadav himself faced an uncomfortably tight contest. Against this, the NDA’s cohesion and methodical alliance-building looked positively managerial. The win signals a decisive mandate delivered by electorate, which clearly privileged welfare and development over caste arithmetic, religious sentiment and nostalgia for strongmen.

Safety Mirage

It has been a year since Badlapur was convulsed by the Akshay Shinde case, a chilling reminder of how vulnerable children remain even in supposedly safe educational spaces. Shinde, accused of sexually assaulting two schoolgirls, was killed in a murky police encounter while being taken for questioning. The sordid episode forced the state government to promise sweeping reforms. A year on, those promises look less like systemic safeguards and more like theatre.


State government authorities have been quick to trumpet new measures like Police Clearance Certificates for school staff, surprise inspections and CCTV cameras in classrooms and on paper. While the system resembles an airtight fortress of vigilance, the fortifications are hollow in practice as shocking misdemeanours continue unchecked in schools and varsities across Maharashtra.


The Sangli rape case in May exposed just how little has changed in the culture of safety. A 22-year-old medical student was drugged and assaulted by her classmates. If universities, which ought to nurture mature professionals, cannot protect their own students, what hope is there for schoolchildren?


In Nashik, the rot is even starker. A school inspection this April revealed knives, chains, condoms and playing cards in the bags of pupils as young as 12. The discovery shocked even jaded inspectors, but instead of grappling with the underlying breakdown in supervision and discipline, officials offered another round of pious statements about ‘safety awareness.’


Nashik was rocked again earlier this month when a 15-year-old boy was beaten to death by his classmates over a dispute about seating in a tuition class. A trivial quarrel escalated into a fatal assault in full view of a teacher and other students.


These incidents puncture the government’s carefully cultivated narrative of reform. Rather than a serious re-engineering of student safety, what Maharashtra has delivered is cosmetic compliance. CCTV cameras, often installed haphazardly, are as effective as scarecrows in deterring predators. Awareness workshops only amount to tick-box exercises when predators lurk within institutions or when teachers themselves prove incapable of handling conflict among students.


After Badlapur, the state could have instituted transparent audits of schools, mandatory reporting of safety breaches and legal liability for institutions that fail to protect students. Instead, responsibility has been dispersed so widely that no one is to blame when the next outrage erupts. A state that fails to protect its students is one that has normalised neglect. The casual brutality of Nashik’s classroom killing is a symptom of the erosion of values within schools. Maharashtra’s rulers are fond of announcing grand schemes, but the gap between promise and reality has rarely been so stark.


The anniversary of Badlapur ought to have been an occasion for redoubled commitment. Instead, it reveals a state content to confuse surveillance with safety and tokenism with reform. The mirage of protection may satisfy bureaucrats. It will not bring back the children whose lives were shattered because those tasked with protecting them preferred optics to action.

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