Bihar Bureaucracy Calm; Expects Nitish’s Return- Will It Hold True on Nov 14?

As Bihar awaits the results of the Assembly elections scheduled to be counted on November 14, 2025, a distinct sense of calm prevails across the state bureaucracy. Officers appear confident that the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government will retain power, paving the way for Kumar to be sworn in as Chief Minister for the tenth time.

Nitish Kumar has been at the helm of Bihar since November 2005, barring a brief nine-month interlude in 2014–2015 when Jitan Ram Manjhi held the top post. Over the years, the state’s bureaucratic machinery has been fine-tuned to align seamlessly with Nitish Kumar’s governance style and administrative expectations.

Such deep institutional alignment has created a system so accustomed to his leadership that even the mere thought of a change at the top unsettles the administrative setup built over the past two decades. This underlying stability or complacency, as some may call it, reflects an implicit assumption within the bureaucracy that the political order will remain unchanged after counting day.

However, this calm wasn’t always visible. Earlier, murmurs about the Chief Minister’s health, his perceived loss of charisma, and speculation over the government’s performance had momentarily shaken bureaucratic confidence. But as the election campaign progressed, Nitish Kumar’s renewed political assertiveness and strategic outreach helped shift the narrative in his favour.

Bihar recorded a “historic high” voter turnout of 66.91%, the highest since 1951, leaving everyone, including bureaucrats, guessing where the support might have gone. When ECI data revealed that women voters led the participation surge with a turnout of 71.6%, outpacing men by nearly nine percentage points — the widest-ever gap recorded in the state — it strengthened the belief that women played a decisive role in this election.

While the final verdict will be known only on November 14, those close to the corridors of power in Patna maintain that this surge in women’s participation is likely to work in Nitish Kumar’s favour, further reinforcing the bureaucracy’s quiet confidence in the continuity of his leadership.