Twenty-five-year-old folk singer and BJP candidate Maithili Thakur has emerged as a giant slayer in the 2025 Bihar elections.
Contesting from Alinagar in Darbhanga, she maintained a steady lead over RJD heavyweight Binod Mishra from the moment counting began on Friday morning and went on to become the youngest member of the new Bihar Assembly.
Hailing from Benipatti in the neighbouring Madhubani district, about 35 km from the Mithila region, Thakur is trained in Indian classical and devotional music.
She joined the BJP in October, soon after the party announced its first list of 71 candidates for the Bihar elections.
Alinagar is a Brahmin-dominated constituency with a sizeable population of Muslims, Yadavs, and Extremely Backward Classes such as Mallahs and Paswans. A win here would also be historic for the BJP, which has never won this seat before.
Thakur is one of several 25-year-olds contesting this polls, alongside Sonu Kumar from Goh, Naveen Kumar and Amrita Soni from Batnaha, Kundan Kumar from Sheikhpura, Shambhu Babu from Supaul, and Rajkumar Sada from Simri Bakhtiarpur. Until now, the youngest MLA in the state was independent candidate Tauseef Alam, elected at 26 in 2005, followed by the RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, who entered the Assembly at the same age in 2015.
Political observers said BJP’s strategy in Mithilanchal region was to appeal to young voters.
“I will follow whatever instructions are given to me,” she had said earlier, though, initially, contesting an election was not her goal.
However, her poll rallies drew huge crowds, and she sang devotional songs to entertain the crowd.
Thakur, who describes Prime Minister Narendra Modi as her “idol,” had previously been appointed Bihar’s icon for the voter awareness campaign by the Election Commission.
She stirred a controversy when she promised to rename Alinagar as Sitanagar if she won. The remark drew backlash from across the constituency.
Muslims constitute over 30% of Darbhanga district’s population, according to the 2011 Census.
Her election affidavit shows assets of nearly Rs 4 crore, with her annual income rising from Rs 12.02 lakh to Rs 28.67 lakh over the past five years. She owns gold worth Rs 53 lakh, keeps Rs 1.8 lakh in cash, and holds a range of mutual fund investments across major schemes.
Alinagar has traditionally been an RJD stronghold, long represented by veteran Abdul Bari Siddiqui, who won seven times before stepping aside after his 2015 victory. In 2020, the seat went to VIP’s Mishri Lal Yadav on a Vikassheel Insaan Party ticket. He later joined the BJP after winning by a narrow margin of just over 3,000 votes.
In May 2025, he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in a 2019 criminal case by the MP–MLA court in Darbhanga.
The BJP then chose to replace him with Maithili Thakur. Yadav quit the party on 11 October.