Caste Factor and Youth Anger Make BJP's ‘Ghuspaithiya’ Politics Irrelevant in Bihar

One of the striking aspects of the upcoming Bihar assembly polls is that the Grand Alliance, also known as Mahagathbandhan (consisting of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress, Left Parties and Vikashsheel Insan Party (VIP) ) has unanimously declared that Tejashwi Yadav and Mukesh Sahani of the VIP would be chief minister and deputy chief minister, respectively on securing the mandate of the people. In contrast, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has not announced current chief minister Nitish Kumar’s name as the chief ministerial candidate and rather Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union home minister Amit Shah has declared that NDA MLAs would decide its chief minister after winning the elections.

Caste survey

It is important to be mindful that the 2025 Bihar assembly elections are being held after the historic caste survey was conducted in the state, and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list undertaken by the Election Commission of India (ECI), which faces credible charges that lakhs of eligible voters have been disenfranchised.

The caste survey brought to light startling details about not just the numerical strength of each caste or group of castes but also their social and economic status.

It is well documented that in a state like Bihar, caste identity is one of the weighty factors for political mobilisation of the people and determination of their choice to exercise their votes for a particular political party or candidate in electoral fray. Therefore, in the caste survey the startling figure of 35% of Other Backward Classes (EBCs), consisting of several castes with very low social and economic indicators, can hardly be ignored by any political party while finalising the list of candidates for contesting elections. 

RJD’s more inclusive list

But in the BJP's list of 101 candidates 50% are from forward castes and in the NDA list, of which the BJP is a part, it is 35%; whereas in the list of the RJD out of 143 candidates 15 are women, 52 hail from OBC Yadav caste, 18 are Muslims and 13 belong to the Kushwaha castes and two to Kurmi castes.

Both Kushwaha and Kurmi castes are part of the EBCs forming the formidable vote base of Nitish Kumar. In going beyond Yadav and Muslim base and embracing other EBCs, the RJD as a major player in the Mahagathbandhan is poised to script a new electoral calculus which might gain some advantage as it did for Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh where in 2024 general elections he put together PDA – pichde (backward castes), Dalits, and alpsankhyak (minorities). So does it mean advantage RJD and Mahagathbandhan in Bihar, in terms of caste composition?

NDA’s list with more high castes

Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) cultivated EBCs and Maha Dalits and formulated many schemes for them. Now, combined together they formed a formidable vote bank for the party. It is difficult to appreciate how JD(U) proclaiming the ideal of social justice has opted for giving more tickets to the forward castes as part of its electoral strategy for the 2025 state assembly elections. 

Nitish and women vote bank

Nitish Kumar’s vote bank constitutes more than one crore of women out of which those registered as Jeevika Didis have been paid – just a month before the election was announced – Rs 10,000 for investing in some business activities. That amount is a loan and so interest is charged on it. Apart from reserving jobs of the state government for women, Nitish Kumar has appointed rural women as Community Mobilisers (CMs) and they are also paid some amount. Such schemes have benefitted more than a crore of women and they are committed voters of the JD(U). A sociologist described such women centric policies as characteristics of a “maternalistic welfare state.” 

RJD’s announcements on women and job issue

RJD’s Tejashwi has attempted to win away women in favour of his party by stating that he would make most of those Jeevika Didis permanent government employees with Rs 30,000 salary per month. He also declared that the interest charged on money given to those Didis would be waived off. Besides, he assured that those appointed as contractual employees in the government would be made permanent. Most importantly he promised that a law would be enacted to give one person from every family a government job and that would be implemented in 20 months. All these announcements have appealed to people in a big way because he as the deputy chief minister had created five lakh jobs and those found eligible were employed in those posts.

Also read: Politic | Nitish Kumar and the BJP’s Self-Defeatism

Youth and booth

Young people, cutting across caste and religion, who have graduated from colleges and universities and worked hard to clear exams for government jobs, are highly frustrated and bitter due to recurring exam paper leaks. When they protested against widespread unemployment and frequent paper leaks, they were brutally lathi-charged by the Nitish government and have coined a slogan "Jisne Chalai Lathi Youth Par, Uska Hisab Hoga Booth Par (Those who charged Lathi on Youth, their fate would be decided at the Booth)”. 

Basic and secular issus

It is of seminal importance that the 2025 Bihar elections are fought on basic and secular issues of people and attempts of the BJP and its top leaders such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Shah to make “ghuspaithiya (infiltrator)” the central electoral issue has failed.

Five years ago in 2020 Tejashwi made people’s issues such as sikshya (education), kamai (income), davai (medicine), sichai (irrigation) and mehngai (inflation) key to his electoral strategy. His party emerged as the single largest party.

As in 2020, basic issues of the people are once again rendering the BJP’s communal agenda – to polarise the electorate along religious lines – irrelevant.

In all opinion polls, Tejashwi is 30% ahead of Nitish for the post of chief minister. People, especially youth, want change of leadership and government. Now that he has been declared as the chief ministerial candidate one has to cautiously see how people would exercise their vote to choose their government.

Vote adhikar rally

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s massive vote adhikar rally to expose the loss of voting rights of people because of SIR and the way he linked vote adhikar with jobs, livelihood and dignity of people as citizens created a positive atmosphere for the Mahagathbandhan. 

ECI's role

Will the SIR process deleting the names of lakhs of voters favour the BJP and the NDA? Will the Supreme Court monitored inclusion of deleted voters bring back those names to the final list of voters in Bihar? The ECI’s action needs close scrutiny in case the fight becomes too close.

S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K.R. Narayanan.

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