As the Bihar Election Results 2025 rolled in on Friday, Patna’s Veerchand Patel Marg reflected two contrasting moods.
At one end, BJP and JD(U) offices buzzed like festival grounds, filled with drums, firecrackers, and the aroma of fresh laddoos. At the other end, RJD headquarters wore a heavy silence, with long faces, whispered conversations, and disbelief growing with every update from the Election Commission.
With the NDA heading toward a decisive victory, the BJP headquarters erupted into celebration. Workers surged past the iron gates, some cycling in from the old city, others spilling out of auto-rickshaws brimming with fluttering party flags, turning the street into a festive spectacle.
The party office`s courtyard changed colours with every firecracker, orange from the saffron smoke, grey from the debris, and red from the gulal smeared on jubilant faces.
Workers wearing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar masks held their position at the entrance, breaking into impromptu jigs each time the BJP tally flickered upward on the large LED screen fixed above the porch.
“Modi ka Parivar!” they roared in unison, waving miniature cut-outs of the PM.
Close by, women workers in saffron saris punched the air with scarves, chanting, “Bharat Mata ki Jai!”, “Narendra Modi zindabad!”, “Nitish Kumar zindabad!” The drumbeats were relentless, threatening to drown out even the fireworks.
“With one-sided leads, the NDA appears invincible! The public has rejected the politics of lies, loot and illusion,” shouted a woman worker from Purnea, raising her voice above the crescendo.
A young man, perched precariously on a guardrail, added: “Bihar is once again with the NDA, this is the verdict against the Thugbandhan!”
Inside, senior leaders exchanged restrained smiles, cautious but widening steadily as the BJP shot past the 90-seat mark of the 101 it contested.
Workers distributed laddoos, declaring the party “on course for its biggest-ever assembly tally in Bihar, burying the ghost” of its Lok Sabha dip last year.
A few hundred metres away, the JD(U) office was exploding in its own shade of euphoria – green.
As the EC trends nudged the party to an 82-seat lead, the compound erupted with rolling dhols, green gulal clouds and crackers.
A giant poster of Kumar was hoisted above the crowd, its edges snapping sharply in the November breeze.
“Nitish ji ki paanchvi jeet likhi ja chuki hai, ab sirf formalities baaki hain! (Nitish ji`s fifth victory is already written; only the formalities remain now),” a worker shouted into a TV camera.
Elderly loyalists sat under a tarpaulin canopy, clapping gently to a lone dholak.
“From 2005 till today, people know who actually governs and who only makes noise,” Ramesh Yadav from Nalanda told a news channel, claiming he had attended every Nitish victory celebration since the JD(U) leader`s debut win.
A volunteer dressed as “Vikas Purush” posed for cameras with cardboard cut-outs of roads, irrigation canals and welfare schemes pasted onto his kurta.
A youth group marched past with a giant green thermocol arrow, the JD(U) symbol, chanting, “Teer chalega, Bihar badega!”
Steaming buckets of jalebis disappeared before they could be placed on tables; even policemen stationed at the gate smiled wryly as green gulal settled on their uniforms.
“Paanchvi jeet ka josh alag hi hota hai (The excitement of a fifth win has a different energy altogether),” one of them remarked.
But just across the road, within full view of the celebrations, the RJD office lived an altogether different morning.
Faces turned grim as early trends strengthened into what looked like a rout.
The RJD, which had entered the campaign confident of repeating its “single-largest” status from 2020, found itself gasping for relevance by noon.
“We are very disappointed,” said Nishant Yadav, former Patna University Students` Union vice president. “We wanted to give Tejashwi Yadav a chance. But the trends are not in our favour.”
Outside the gate, a group of women sang self-written songs referencing `Mai Bahan Yojana`, one of the RJD leader`s key promises.
One of them sighed, “Victory and defeat are two sides of the same coin. Sometimes students prepare well, but write the exam badly.”
Meanwhile, at the BJP office, celebrations reached their theatrical peak when actor Phool Singh, wearing a saffron jacket and a framed Modi locket, arrived atop a “Vijay Rath”.
“Wherever Modi ji wins, my chariot will go. Bihar today, Jharkhand tomorrow,” he declared.
Adding a cross-state flavour, AIADMK workers from Tamil Nadu, clad in dual BJP-AIADMK scarves, posed for photos.
“We came here to celebrate NDA`s success. Bihar, like Tamil Nadu, is rejecting dynastic politics,” said K Shanmugaraja.
By afternoon, Veerchand Patel Path had turned into a split-screen of Bihar`s political churn: saffron-and-green ecstasy on one side, red-and-white gloom on the other.
Every firecracker, every drumbeat and every chant told the same story, as the NDA marched toward a comfortable majority, Patna`s streets echoed the soundscape of a state choosing continuity over change.
(With PTI inputs)