Riding on the back of an unprecedented turnout of women voters, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling coalition NDA today stormed back to power with a landslide victory in the legislative assembly elections in the country's third most populous and a key battleground state of Bihar.

The massive scale of the victory of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) can be gauged from the fact that it is on course for crossing the 200-seat mark in the 243-member assembly with a three-fourth majority. The majority mark is 122.

Helped by Modi's charisma, BJP emerged as the single largest party with 87 seats, up from 74 in the previous assembly poll five years ago, while its key regional ally Janata Dal (U) led by chief minister Nitish Kumar won in 74 constituencies, up from 43 in 2020 elections, according to latest results and trends.

The opposition alliance, 'Mahagathbandhan', which includes Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress and three Left parties, was poised for a crushing defeat, as it struggled to better its record in the previous assembly poll five years ago.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) seat tally slipped to 24 from 75 in 2020 and Congress bagged only six out of the 61 seats it contested, down from 19 five years ago.

As was apparent during campaigning, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi's repeated "vote chori" narrative woven around Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll found no resonance with voters in Bihar.

In a post on his official X, Modi attributed NDA's victory to good governance, development, pro-people spirit and social justice and expressed "gratitude to each and every person of Bihar for blessing NDA with a historical and unparalleled victory in the 2025 Vidhan Sabha elections. This mandate gives us renewed strength to serve the people and work for Bihar."

Later addressing party workers at BJP national headquarters, he said, "The people of Bihar have truly raised a storm with this landslide victory. ""Bihar has given the NDA its biggest mandate since 2010."

The single biggest factor attributed to NDA win by political analysts is Modi's transfer of 75 billion rupees ($853 million) to the bank accounts of millions of women in the state under an employment programme in September, reflecting that welfare politics remains a potent political weapon.

According to the Election Commission, Bihar polls this year not only drew the highest voter turnout of 66.91 percent in the state's history but also the highest number of women electors (71.6 percent) who outnumbered men voters (62.8 per cent).