NEW DELHI: A push for social engineering in search of additional votes appears to have given way to the governing NDA focusing on consolidation of its traditional support base for the Bihar assembly polls. This turn is most telling in the significant cut in the number of Yadav candidates fielded by its two biggest constituents,
BJP and JD(U).
BJP has fielded only six Yadavs this time, as against 16 in 2020, while chief minister Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) has chosen eight candidates, as against 18 the last time. The choice of BJP’s replacements for some of its sitting Yadav MLAs points to its new gameplan: it has gone for a Kushwaha, the most populous OBC community after Yadavs; a Nishad, an increasingly assertive extremely backward classes group; and a Vaishya, the party's traditional supporter, for the Patna Sahib, Aurai and Munger seats, respectively.
Nitish has fielded only 4 Muslims as against 11 in 2020
Since it was elected to office at the Centre in 2014 and emerged as the largest party in Bihar, ahead of RJD and JDU, BJP has tried to expand its support base. Overtures to Yadavs were part of the plan to broaden the tent.
In both 2015 and 2020, it disregarded Yadavs’ staunch support for RJD to give them a sizeable number of tickets. The community has a population share of 14.2%; that is three times the number of Kushwahas (4.2%). However, the community, which along with Muslims forms the mainstay of Lalu Prasad-headed RJD, refused to leave his side. If anything, it rallied even more vigorously behind INDIA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
RJD, the principal member of the opposition alliance, is trying to expand its formidable social coalition of Yadavs and Muslims by giving more tickets to candidates from other communities: something that represents a recognition that the powerful M-Y bloc is not adequate to end RJD’s two-decade-long exile from office. In contrast, BJP has decided to focus on preserving and rallying its more diverse and bigger core bloc of upper castes and a large section of non-Yadav OBCs, EBCs and Scheduled Castes. Ram Surat Rai, the sitting BJP MLA from Aurai who has been dropped this time, said Yadav lawmakers like him have borne the brunt of his party’s focus on its core votes as they were never seen as part of its social coalition.
Rai was replaced by Rama Nishad, wife of former MP Ajay Nishad who had contested from Muzaffarpur on a Congress ticket after BJP denied him a Lok Sabha ticket in 2024. Nishads are seen as a swing bloc and wooed by RJD and its ally Mukesh Sahani of VIP. The party also dropped its seasoned lawmaker Nand Kishore Yadav, a seven-time winner and speaker in the outgoing assembly, in favour of Ratnesh Kushwaha from Patna Sahib.
JDU, too, has followed a similar playbook. Seen as more vulnerable than BJP, it has fielded 25 candidates from Kurmi-Koeri (Kushwaha) castes and 22 each from upper castes and extremely backward classes.
Nitish has this time fielded only four Muslims, as against 11 in 2020, in what is being seen as belated recognition that the community would prefer Lalu to him. A JDU functionary noted that all its Muslim candidates had lost last time, and the community has been vocal in its criticism of the party for siding with BJP in supporting amendments to the waqf law.
BJP has named 49 candidates from upper castes and 52 from OBCs, EBCs and Dalits.
A BJP functionary noted that both his party and JDU were contesting fewer seats (101 each) than the 110 and 115, respectively, they contested last time. “We had to drop many candidates. And members of some communities were easy choices as these groups are not much inclined to support our alliance,” the BJP neta added.
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