What do women want? Even as Sigmund Freud, a noted psychologist struggled for an answer, but as it turns out, the veteran Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar seems to have cracked the code on what women vote for. And the answer is as layered and holistic as how women think.
NDA’s vote share is greater in districts where the share of women voters exceeded that of men, even as the men outnumbered women in the electoral rolls following the special intensive revision, four lakh more women turned out to vote in the 2025 assembly elections.
So, was the vote in favour of Nitish Kumar’s brand of clean politics or against the politics of hoologanism championed by the Rashtriya Janata Dal?
Women, a caste-neutral constituency, have been assiduously cultivated by Nitish Kumar. One of the early champions of women-centric policies, Kumar, through his 19 years of governance in the state has devised and implemented several policies that have addressed women empowerment from all aspects – financial, education, health. To think that the Rs 10,000 transfer to women under the Mukhyamantri Mahila Rozgar Yojana days before polling swung the vote in favour of NDA would be taking a short-term view on what women voters want and vote for.
Kumar has remained steadfast on the prohibition policy of Bihar, despite a lot of resistance from his own colleagues.
As the key architect of the complete alcohol prohibition policy in Bihar, a law that has been in effect in Bihar since April 2016 specifically targeted towards bringing in social reform, reducing domestic violence, Kumar has been criticised for its harsh provisions, the policy has been unpopular with the male voters, something that the RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav was hoping to build on. He promised to repeal the prohibition policy in the Mahagathbandhan’s manifesto, even as Kumar chose to remain silent on it.
The policy with all its challenges, including the criticism that prohibition rarely works and leads to more black marketing and counterfeiting of alcohol, Kumar has remained strong in the pro-prohibition camp. Women continue to support the ban and have stood with Kumar on this controversial policy that has also cost the state a lot of revenues.
Alcohol is a major source of state revenue, with excise duties on liquor generating a significant portion of state’s income- it often accounts for 15-20 percent of states’ own tax revenues. Estimates show that Bihar has lost nearly one percent of its GSDP and 15 percent of its own tax revenues annually because of prohibition. Alcohol was a significant source of state excise duty, in 2015-16, the state earned Rs 3,142 crore from state excise duty, which is down to negligible now.
According to a report published by the International Food Policy Research Institute in The Lancet, the prohibition policy has reduced experiences of emotional and sexual violence among women- the ban prevented approximately 2.4 million cases of daily or weekly alcohol consumption and 2.1 million cases of intimate partner violence among females.
On many parameters of domestic violence, Bihar fared better than its neighbouring states where alcohol is legal. Bihar’s many schemes including the Bank Sakhi Program, Mukhya Mantri Rozgaar Yojana etc have accelerated economic empowerment of women.
Number of women tax payers in Bihar have shown a significant increase to 510,234 in 2023-24 (AY) from 435,928 in 2021-22.
On maternal health, the percentage of institutional deliveries has risen significantly in the state from 4 percent in 2006-07 to 76 percent in 2020, the maternal mortality rate has decreased from 312 in 2005 to 165 in 2018-19.
The number of women with bank accounts has grown from 26.4 percent in 2015-16 to 76.7 percent in 2019-20.
From 50 percent reservation for women in Panchayati Raj institutions, to 35 percent reservation in all state government jobs to the Jeevika Programme which has brought in around 1.4 crore women into microfinance networks, known as jeevika didis -women have formed the cornerstone of the Kumar model of governance for close to two decades.
To undermine this silent electoral force and write the women off as driven by ‘rewaris’ is to disregard these change-makers rewriting the Bihar growth story - one bank account at a time.
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