Behind Nitish Kumar’s repeated U-turns: Caste-wise voting patterns in Bihar

The BJP and RJD have the backing of equally powerful caste blocs, but they are not enough to win elections on their own. For a man who envisions himself in the Prime Minister’s chair, Nitish Kumar merely commands the support of the numerically smaller Koeri and Kurmi communities in his home turf. But this also makes him the kingmaker, allowing him to call the shots in Bihar’s turbulent politics for decades.

Nitish’s rivals BJP and RJD, on the contrary, boast of unwavering support from numerically dominant communities. While upper castes, non-Yadav OBCs and SCs are firmly behind BJP, Yadavs and Muslims have traditionally backed the RJD. For a state where caste consciousness and social engineering take precedence over nationalism or Hindutva as electoral issues, it is here that Nitish can tilt the scales.

Lokniti-CSDS post-poll surveys of the 2019 Lok Sabha election and 2020 Bihar Assembly election give an insight as to how caste plays an important factor in voting patterns. Upper castes (Brahmins, Bhumihars and Rajputs) and Muslims, each comprise 17 percent of Bihar’s population, while SCs form 16 percent. OBCs and EBCs constitute almost half the population, with Yadavs alone accounting for over 14 percent; Koeris and Kurmis together form 11 per cent.

According to Lokniti-CSDS, 65 percent upper castes voted for the NDA in 2019 and 54 percent in 2020. UPA received 55 percent Yadav votes in 2019 and 83 percent the following year. For the Koeri-Kurmi community, the numbers stood at 70 and 66 in favour of NDA, while for other OBCs, it was 76 and 58. As expected, the UPA garnered the lion’s share of Muslim votes in both years.

The SC vote share for NDA came down from 76 percent in 2019 to 35 percent in 2020, partly due to the Paswan vote shifting to LJP, which contested separately. Among SCs, the highest vote for NDA came from the Musahar community, represented by Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustan Awam Morcha. Manjhi too has oscillated between the NDA and UPA for much of his political career, and left no chance at clinging on to the Mahagathbandhan (MGB) ship after Nitish dumped the BJP.

*Source: Lokniti-CSDS post-poll survey

On paper, the MGB’s social coalition and caste realignment looks tough for the BJP to beat. In 2015, the RJD and JD(U) contested the elections together, and the MGB won 178 of the total 243 seats; the BJP-led NDA secured only 58 seats. On the other hand, power has eluded the RJD when JD(U) sided with the BJP. As things stand now, the MGB has 164 MLAs in the 243-member assembly, including 79 from RJD and 45 from JD(U).

All’s not lost for the BJP though. Among allies, it can still bank on the LJP to draw enough SC votes. At the same time, the BJP has several powerful leaders in its camp cutting across caste and community lines, such as Renu Devi and Shahnawaz Hussain, who can upset the MGB’s caste arithmetic.

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