The 2025 Bihar poll outcome cannot be interpreted as anti-dynasty (Lalu and Gandhis) since Ram Vilas Paswan’s son Chirag Paswan has fared exceedingly well in the same election.

Before we delve deeper, it is important to consider possible non-voting causes of the NDA landslide, even if some of the reasons appear speculative in nature bordering on so-called conspiracy theories.

​

1. The opposition’s charge of vote theft – “vote chori” – can’t be dismissed outright and deserves a closer look, incisive analysis and deeper understanding among ordinary people.
    

2. Bihar has the reputation of being one of the most backward states of India to the west of the country’s Northeast region. This manifests not just in terms of lack of modern development but also in terms of sub-optimal intellectual development of people.
   The fact that its Patna metro station got spit upon by gutka-chewing masses within hours of its opening is a testimony to the lack of social and societal evolution among the Biharis. So, it is reasonable to assume that the Bihar electorate are virtually zombies in the context of 21st century. Meaning, they can be easily manipulated psychologically.
    

3. Electronic voting machines (EVMs) have been tampered with in the past and can be manipulated at the vote-booth level.
    

4. At the constituency level, where voting boils down to sheer numbers, simply buying out voters and their votes by doling out cash is still a popular and preferred practice among all contesting candidates, irrespective of their party affiliations.
    

5. Incumbent governments typically make lots of prepoll grand (and false) promises and indulge in populist schemes, subsidies and sops to buy votes through non-cash means. Even disbursal of cash via government schemes in the run-up to elections can be said to be a sort of voter-bribing.
    

6. Behind-the-scenes caste-, community- and religion-based politics is a reality in Indian polity. Unfortunately, even the educated middle class, the worker class, salaried professionals and the intelligentsia among the voters are not immune to this malady. Whatever be the discourse, the narrative, the performance of lawmakers, the party manifestos, the candidates’ credentials … ultimately, when the moment of casting vote in the ballot box (or EVM) comes, it is factors like caste, community or religion (or who paid the most cash or who promised the biggest post-poll freebies and policy bonanzas) that sway the voter’s mind.
    

7. Against a backdrop of ever-growing strength of the incumbents, a weak and divided opposition that can’t get its act together even in spite of previous defeats in other states, and hence can’t mount a credible and attractive challenge, much less propagate a narrative that can find quick traction … such an opposition is a recipe for pro-incumbent vote.
    

8. Administrative and policy changes or malpractices like gerrymandering, changes to voter rolls and other similar factors (booth-capture, voter impersonation, physical impediments to voters/voting, vote count discrepancies) can influence poll outcomes.

​

There are other factors that make the current or prevailing version of Indian democracy false, fake, farcical and flawed, making the whole process ineffective and a sham.

The practice of “winner takes all” is based on a flawed method of determining the winner by a simple majority. A simple example will illustrate this critical flaw.

Let’s say a constituency with 100 voters is contested by 13 candidates. The winning candidate gets 15 votes, followed by others who get 13, 12, 11, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 votes respectively. Total valid votes cast are 96, with four votes invalidated for various reasons.

This is typically the pattern in any election in India. That’s not all. There is a huge discrepancy in the vote-share and the number of seats won, making a mockery of representational politics. Bihar poll outcome in November 2025 is no different. Tejashwi Yadav-led RJD emerged as the party with the single largest vote-share overall state-wide. Yet, in terms of seats won, the RJD came a cropper.

In the example above, the winning candidate is someone for whom 85 percent of voters have not voted. Yet, with just 15 percent of the vote-share, he/she gets 100 percent power to determine the fate of the entire constituency, including that of the 85 percent of the voters who did not vote for him/her, for the entire term.

 

Now, is this genuine democracy? Can we come up with a more scientific, more effective, truly democratic and genuinely representational model that’s fit for the 21st century, the high-tech ultra-modern age we live in now? Of course, we can. Here’s how:

 

1. We urgently need to make democracy much more sensible by introducing proportional weightage constituency-wise as well as assembly- / Parliament-wise. This would mean, people’s voice, as represented proportionately by the number of votes cast, needs to be respected every day and in every decision taken and every policy move implemented. A winning candidate supported by, say, just 20 percent of the electorate – this means, s/he is opposed by a whopping 80 percent – cannot have a 100 percent say or power for the entire tenure of his/her term. Instead, democracy needs to become truly representational by giving proportional weighting to votes cast. A scientific method needs to be evolved to honour people’s will and preference continually, on an ongoing basis, with regard to every decision, action, policy, regulation and law enacted, and not just at the moment of voting once in five years (or whenever an election is held). While minor decisions at city, state and national levels can be based on voting by the contestants / candidates concerned (with each of their votes having the proportional weight corresponding to the percentage of votes secured in the main election), major decisions should follow only after due consultations with the electorate via e-referendums where every voter should be mandated to vote online mandatorily. Not voting in elections and e-referendums should be made an offense liable for a heavy fine, with non-voting in three consecutive elections and e-referendums entailing a possible prison term as well.
    

2. Do we really need MPs and MLAs? What purpose do they serve? What exactly is their contribution? What has been their performance so far? An in-depth study is urgently required to evolve metrics to answer the questions above. Such a study should involve analysis of Indian democracy at the city / municipal, state and national levels since 1947. Essentially, our elected representatives are supposed to function as lawmakers. That is, they are tasked to enact new laws and amend existing laws. But in this day and age, law-making should belong to experts and specialists, not career politicians who, in India, also tend to be criminals, corrupt and worse. As for the executive function, we have bureaucrats assisted by the whole machinery of government officials and workers. If you exclude government ministers, there is no worthwhile purpose that other MPs / MLAs / MLCs serve. The theoretical functions of i) representing constituencies and securing government funds from government budget for development in the constituency and ii) debating, scrutinizing, censuring and exposing government actions usually degenerate into slanging matches, filibustering, pandemonium, walkouts, etc, in real-life practice. These days, MPs and MLAs appear more in media coverage than in Parliament / Assembly. Power is instead misused and abused behind the scenes to bag / award contracts, cut deals, forge relations with moneybags and influencers like gurus and celebrities, earn bribes, and for politicking and other corrupt practices (horse-trading, selling parliamentary vote for money, taking money to ask questions in Parliament / Assembly, party defections, factional politics, etc). This can hardly be called democracy. It is high time this long-standing problem is fixed once for all now. MPs, MLAs and Councillors need to be given training in law-making and made accountable for their performance in terms of accomplishments on the floor of the legislative house and effective, measurable use of budget funds for development in the constituency.
    

3. Voting needs to move from EVMs at polling booths to smartphones and PCs. Authentication software needs to be made use of to ensure fool-proof systems. If banks, e-commerce platforms and other online businesses can successfully use technology to conduct online business nationwide, there is no reason why voting can’t be done similarly. A time window of one week for voting online can prove very convenient. With political will and adequate budget, a new system can be developed quickly to enable all voters to secure electronic voter IDs that can be used to cast votes in elections at every level (village, municipal, state and parliamentary) as well as e-referendums. Not a big deal any more, technology-wise. This radical move will obviate the whole Indian election ballyhoo of hustings, expensive campaigns, polling booths, election officials, poll-related violence, counting, etc. Billions of dollars can be saved at one go with this one radical move. Such a move will go one up on the recent NYC Mayor election campaign where the eventual winner Zohran Mamdani used digital channels and in-person visits to reach out to, impress, persuade and win over voters.
    

4. Among the other reforms needed urgently to save our democracy, the entire budget process needs to be made transparent by digitizing it and making available all data to the public domain in real time. This can be done using technology. Every rupee earned and spent by the government should be updated online in real time on an ongoing basis (even after factoring in some amount of secrecy for security-related operations).
    

5. Democracy can be made truly participatory and representational at an individual citizen level by introducing e-referendums. Each and every decision that could have implications for the life of the common man, national security and macroeconomy should be taken only after due consultation with citizenry. As point 3 above proves, this is technologically feasible. The way Indian democracy has degenerated after Independence in 1947 shows that we as a nation should no longer outsource governance and law-making to a minuscule bunch of MPs, MLAs and Councillors and their bureaucrats. Democracy needs to be urgently redefined and recast using technology.
    

6. As discussed briefly above, key performance metrics need to be evolved for elected representatives, so that voters can benefit from research-driven data and hard facts to make informed decisions like who to vote for. This function should be entrusted to a newly created, functionally autonomous Research and Analysis Department within the Election Commission. The experience of India so far in this regard has been pathetic as politicians with the gift of the gab, and the ability to create slogans, shape narratives and spin rhetoric, have been swaying electorates and walking away with landslides, rendering facts, data, performance and development (or lack thereof) irrelevant.
    

7. The Constitution should be amended to impose a blanket ban on post-poll party defections, horse-trading and other such deplorable practices. Once e-voting and e-referendums become the norm via use of smartphones and PCs, there wouldn’t be any more concern over holding expensive, complicated elections frequently. With the use of fool-proof technology in voting, elections need not be logistical nightmares anymore.
    

8. Similarly, the anachronistic practice of reservations in elections in certain constituencies should be done away with.
    

9. The debacle of Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party in Bihar has severe implications for Indian democracy. It reflects very poorly on the intellectual ability of Bihari/Indian voters in non-urban areas. Illiteracy coupled with high zombie quotient is a lethal recipe for tribal politics that stunts the evolution of genuine democracy.
    

10. The SIR controversy in the run-up to the Bihar 2025 election highlights the need for new mechanisms and processes to subject the Election Commission to the tests of transparency, accountability and scrutiny, beyond the influence of government, bureaucracy and political parties.
     

11. India needs to outgrow the unhealthy practice of making politics a natural progression for ‘smart’ celebrities, especially film stars, iconic sportspeople, cultural luminaries and professional geniuses. The function of law-making requires experts or professionals with relevant domain expertise. If celebrities wish to become lawmakers, they first need to prove themselves worthy of that function, and be willing to be judged for their performance. Right now, they have been monetizing or weaponizing popularity, fame or visibility with ease and impunity. This has to end as the practice is a disgrace and an affront to democracy. It also legitimizes a flawed system.
     

12. Similarly, the system of nominated lawmakers has to end. Also, we don’t need the Rajya Sabha, the Legislative Council and the like.
     

13. Entry barriers to elections should be so low as to make them virtually non-existent, so as to encourage ordinary people, especially sincere, educated, well-meaning professionals, to contest elections without having to worry about securing a large number of proposers and seconders to nominate them, finding huge amount money for campaigns, having to fend off possible pressure and violence from entrenched forces, and so forth. Right now, ordinary people are getting hoodwinked by gimmicks like mainstream parties fielding young celebrities like Maithili Thakur. Earlier, it was Sachin Tendulkar in the Rajya Sabha. This creates the mistaken impression of empowerment of youth and gives legitimacy to a flawed system.
     

14. Last but not least, even voters should be subject to scrutiny, transparency and accountability. It would be a travesty if all the reforms discussed above are implemented, and yet voters still vote for the ‘wrong’ candidates and parties due to considerations like caste, community, religion, ideology, cash or false promises, rather than performance, vision, manifesto and potential. Vote should be made sacred and powerful; voting should be made a duty; and voter should be held responsible for his/her vote. This is not to suggest that voting should cease to be a secret or that it should cease to be a fundamental, absolute right. Let’s not forget that there are already murmurs of discontent in South India over allocation or distribution of central funds as well as the number of parliamentary constituencies determined on the basis of population of each state. South Indian states’ contributions to India’s GDP and the central government’s tax revenues are very high compared to those of states like Bihar. But Bihar, UP and the like have higher number of Lok Sabha seats, thus skewing the power and socioeconomic dynamics of the Indian polity and political economy. Thus, if uneducated, illiterate, impressionable and zombified voters of rural Bihar vote in a way that defies logic and perpetuates backwardness in the state, requiring bankrolling by other states, and yet Bihar commands huge power, then disenchanted and frustrated states may lose faith in the federal structure and consider options like secession. The USSR break-up didn’t exactly lead to the demise of its constituent republics. In fact, many of them continue to thrive as sovereign, independent states now.

​

Read a related essay published in August 2024 after Sheikh Hasina’s government was overthrown in Bangladesh

​

Read a related essay on the mechanics and dynamics of an “ecosystem”

​

Know why reading and digesting content on nrinatter.com means “doing the right thing”

 

Email your views to nrinatter@outlook.com. Please share this essay with others by forwarding the link (URL).

​​