BSP Secures Solitary Win in Bihar in a Nail-Biting Finish
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), led by Mayawati, managed to secure a single seat in the recently concluded Bihar Assembly elections, the results of which were declared on Friday, November 15, 2025. In a dramatic and intensely close contest, the party scraped through with a victory that was decided by a handful of votes.
A Victory of 30 Votes in Ramgarh
The party's sole triumph came from the Ramgarh constituency in the Kaimur district. The BSP candidate, Satish Kumar Singh Yadav, emerged victorious over his nearest rival, the BJP's Ashok Kumar Singh, by an excruciatingly thin margin of just 30 votes.
The final vote count revealed that Satish Yadav garnered 72,689 votes, while Ashok Kumar Singh was a close second with 72,659 votes. This narrow win marks a significant reversal of fortune for Satish Yadav, who had contested the Ramgarh bypoll the previous year on the BSP symbol and lost to the same BJP candidate by a margin of 1,362 votes.
Electoral History and Context of Ramgarh
The electoral battle in Ramgarh has a history of being fiercely competitive. Traditionally considered a bastion of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the seat saw its candidate, Ajit Kumar, finish a distant third with 41,480 votes. Anand Kumar Singh of the Jan Suraaj Party came in fourth with 4,426 votes. A notable 1,154 votes were cast for NOTA (None of the Above).
The BSP's connection to the seat runs deep. In the 2020 Assembly elections, Satish Yadav's uncle, Ambika Singh, contested as the BSP nominee and finished as the runner-up, losing to RJD's Sudhakar Singh by a mere 189 votes. This familial and political history adds layers to Satish Yadav's hard-fought victory.
Broader Electoral Performance and Analysis
Despite fielding candidates in 192 of the 243 seats in the state Assembly, the BSP could only secure this one win. The party's state-wide vote share stood at 1.62 per cent. This performance mirrors its result in the 2020 Bihar elections, where it also won a single seat out of the 78 it contested. That winning candidate, Mohd Zama Khan from Chainpur, later joined the JDU and became a minister in the Nitish Kumar cabinet.
Anil Kumar, the BSP's Bihar in-charge, provided insight into the party's broader performance. He highlighted that both Satish Yadav, who is a teacher, and his uncle had previously lost from the seat by narrow margins. He attributed the party's defeat in other constituencies to an "unexpected rise" in voter turnout, suggesting that this surge may have worked against the BSP's calculations in a highly fragmented political landscape.
