Dhaka

Overview & 2025 Context

Dhaka, Legislative Assembly segment number 21 in Purvi Champaran district, produced a photo-finish in the 2025 Bihar polls. Faisal Rahman of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) finished first with 112,727 votes (45.72%), defeating Pawan Kumar Jaiswal (BJP), who polled 112,549 (45.64%). The victory margin was 178 votes. Of 335,844 electors, 246,699 votes were polled and turnout stood at 73.46%.

The 2025 Bihar Legislative Assembly election was a bipolar contest between the NDA and the Mahagathbandhan. Campaign discourse centred on unemployment, youth out-migration, welfare delivery, women’s schemes, caste arithmetic, and competing claims on jobs versus market-led growth, as reported across major coverage of the polls. In this Legislative Assembly, the local verdict hinged on candidate networks and booth-level conversion as much as alliance symbols. Leading contenders by votes included: Faisal Rahman (RJD, 112,727 / 45.72%); Pawan Kumar Jaiswal (BJP, 112,549 / 45.64%); Doctor L. B. Prasad (Jan Suraaj, 8,347 / 3.39%); RANA RANJIT (AIMIM, 5,730 / 2.32%).

Campaign noise statewide does not erase the arithmetic of this Legislative Assembly segment: the gap between Faisal Rahman and Pawan Kumar Jaiswal is the binding fact for seat 21, and every other claim about caste blocs or welfare messaging has to be tested against that published margin of 178 votes.

Geographical & Administrative Profile

East Champaran (Purvi Champaran) is headquartered at Motihari in the Tirhut belt. The district lies on plains drained by the Gandak, Burhi Gandak and Bagmati systems; agriculture dominates livelihoods and seasonal flood–drought stress is a recurring administrative concern. Administratively, Dhaka is Assembly Constituency number 21 under Purvi Champaran (headquarters: Motihari). Like neighbouring segments, it mixes rural habitations and market nodes where roads, schools, health access and welfare delivery travel with voters as strongly as statewide narratives.

Geography here is not ornamental for election reading. Flood plains, market roads and block headquarters shape who can mobilise, who migrates for work, and which booth clusters decide close Assembly Constituency contests. Dhaka sits inside that Purvi Champaran administrative map even when national television talks only of alliances.

History & Past Election Trends

On the same constituency lineage, recent Legislative Assembly outcomes were — 2020: Pawan Kumar Jaiswal (BJP) by 10,114 votes; 2015: Faisal Rahman (RJD) by 19,197 votes; 2010: PAWAN KUMAR JAISWAL (IND) by 1,649 votes; 2005: AWANEESH KUMAR SINGH (BJP) by 11,269 votes.

Against that backdrop, the 2025 win for Faisal Rahman (RJD) in Assembly Constituency number 21 should be read as continuity where the same camp had dominated, or as another swing where the lineage had flipped before — never by treating the serial number alone as eternal identity.

Statistics & Gender-wise Polling Analysis

Electors: 335,844. Votes polled: 246,699. Turnout: 73.46%. Winner Faisal Rahman (RJD): 112,727 (45.72%); runner-up Pawan Kumar Jaiswal (BJP): 112,549 (45.64%); margin: 178 — a photo-finish relative to total votes polled in this Legislative Assembly seat.

Women slightly outnumbered men among recorded voters: male 121,404 (49.46%), female 124,053 (50.54%), other 1.

Turnout 73.46% with 246,699 votes from 335,844 electors remains the participation baseline for comparing this seat with neighbouring Legislative Assembly segments in Purvi Champaran.

Issues That Drove Voting Behavior

Statewide themes included jobs and migration, welfare and women-centric schemes, caste coalitions, governance/law-and-order messaging, and local delivery of roads, flood control and farm support. In Purvi Champaran, voters also weighed flood embankments, farm incomes, border-area connectivity, rural roads. a photo-finish for Faisal Rahman (RJD) against Pawan Kumar Jaiswal (BJP) suggests the winner’s camp converted a broader preference in seat 21.

None of those themes automatically explain every booth. The usable conclusion for Dhaka is narrower: Faisal Rahman (RJD) outpolled Pawan Kumar Jaiswal (BJP) by 178 votes under 73.46% turnout, and that is the 2025 mandate recorded for Assembly Constituency number 21.

Reading 2025 carefully means separating statewide wave talk from booth-level conversion in Dhaka. Faisal Rahman (RJD) converted 112,727 votes; Pawan Kumar Jaiswal (BJP) had 112,549. Turnout 73.46% and margin 178 in seat 21 signal organisational reach across polling stations rather than a single-day mood swing alone.

For journalists and researchers, the safer frame is lineage continuity plus the published 2025 table: electors 335,844, votes polled 246,699, and the head-to-head between Faisal Rahman and Pawan Kumar Jaiswal. District cues in Purvi Champaran still matter — roads, floods, farm prices, migration and welfare delivery — but they must be weighed against what the EVM count actually recorded in this Assembly Constituency / Legislative Assembly seat.