With just two days left for the Bihar Assembly elections, the spectre of ‘jungle raj’ or lawlessness continues to loom over the poll-bound state.
Every election for the past two decades has seen the rhetoric revisited. The ruling NDA declared they rid Bihar of the previous RJD-led government’s ‘jungle raj’. Incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar claims that Bihar has never been safer and that law and order will always be at the forefront of his government’s long-term plan for the state.
But two high-profile murder cases in broad daylight just this year say otherwise, or so says the opposition’s Mahagathbandhan. The grand alliance has long been attacking the ruling-NDA government, with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav claiming that Bihar has descended into “chaos” under the leadership of an “unconscious CM”.
For context - on July 17 - a prisoner out on parole was shot dead inside a private hospital in Patna by four persons. Furthermore, just days before the polls - on October 30 - bahubali (strongman) Dularchand Yadav, was murdered in Mokama, allegedly by JD (U) candidate Anant Singh.
Murders, or for that matter any crime, can’t only be a Bihar problem. But are the allegations that Bihar is a lawless state where criminals reign supreme true? Let's try to separate fact from fiction.
According to a report by The Indian Express, National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data and the Bihar Police’s state-level figures show that crime is indeed a big problem. From 2015 to 2024 - the overall number of crimes in Bihar rose 80% - according to State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) data. In comparison, from 2015 to 2022, India as a whole saw an increase in overall crimes of just under 24%.
Since 2015, Bihar has been among the top 10 worst states in terms of overall cases of crimes. While Bihar’s overall crime rate has not exceeded the national average in any year since 2015, the incidences of violent crime is higher-than the national average as per NCRB data.
Take murder, for instance. While overall murder cases have fallen from 3,178 in 2015 to 2,930 in 2022, Bihar has ranked second-highest in the country for the number of murders each year since 2015. In cases of attempted murders, those numbers too have risen in Bihar, from 5,981 in 2015 to 8,667 in 2022. In both cases - Bihar is behind only the much more populous Uttar Pradesh. Unsurprisingly, the most common motives for murder in Bihar have consistently been property disputes and personal vendetta.
You’d think with elections happening - the ruling government would do everything it could to bring down the murder rate in 2025. However, until June, Bihar has already recorded 1,379 murders - about halfway to 2024’s total of 2,786.
