How parties ignore caste survey result, stick to old social equations?
Bihar Elections 2025 shows that Congress is convincing the upper castes and RJD is banking on Yadavs and OBCs in ticket distribution and caste still drives politics.
Bihar Election 2025 (Representative Image)
Political parties may vow to abolish castes and abolish the caste system, but when it comes to realpolitik they adhere to the realities of caste-based elections and act accordingly. They emphasize identity politics and determine the entire election strategy keeping in mind the caste equation and ground realities. Bihar Assembly Election 2025 is no exception. All parties, be it from the ruling coalition of NDA or the opposition alliance of Mahagathbandhan, have made their election preparations keeping these facts in mind.
Congress candidates in Bihar Elections
In a bid to counter the BJP, which is known for its base among the upper castes, the Congress Party has reserved 24 out of 61 tickets, or nearly 40% of its tickets, for this section of society. The grand old party fielded 8 Brahmin, 8 Bhumihar, 5 Rajput, 2 Baniya and 1 Kayastha candidates. In an attempt to attack social engineering, the Congress distributed 4 tickets to Extreme Backward Classes (EBCs) i.e. about 7.4% of the total and 5 tickets to OBCs, taking it to 9.2%. All 5 OBC candidates are Yadav (9.3%). The party has thrown the theory of proportional representation out the window while granting tickets.
RJD ticket distribution ignores caste poll
The main opposition party RJD also completely ignored the “jiski jitni sankhya bhari, uski utni hissari” policy. On the other side of the spectrum, the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led party gave more tickets to OBC communities, ignoring upper castes, Muslims and other communities. Of the 142 candidates, 75 or 52% are OBCs. Of the 75 OBC candidates, 51 or 20.3% are Yadavs. While the party gave 13 tickets to Kushwahas, the remaining 11 seats were reserved for other OBC groups including Kurmis, Koeris and Mallahs. The party gave 16 votes to upper caste candidates and 11 votes to EBCs.
According to the Caste Survey conducted in 2022-23, EBCs constitute 36.01% of the state’s population while OBCs constitute an additional 27.13%. Dalits constitute 19.65% of the population and STs constitute 1.68%.
Muslims ignored in Bihar Elections
Muslims constitute approximately 18 percent of the population, but no party has distributed tickets to this many Muslims. Mahagathbandhan represented 31 out of the total 251 Muslim candidates, i.e. 12.35%. Of these, 19 were fielded by RJD, 10 by Congress and 2 by CPI (ML) Liberation. The NDA’s ruling coalition gave only 5% or 2% of its tickets to Muslim candidates. While the BJP did not field any Muslim, JD(U) fielded four and LJP fielded only one.
According to the Caste Survey, the Muslim community constitutes 17.7% of Bihar’s 13.07 crore population. According to this ratio, they should have purchased 44 tickets.
