Umesh Kumar Ray 
Patna: In the recently-concluded Lok Sabha election in Bihar, the INDIA Alliance gave tickets to a total of four Muslim leaders, but only two of them were able to register victory.
Of the four candidates, Congress gave tickets to its two Muslim leaders, Tariq Anwar and Mohammad Javed, from the seats of Seemanchal – Katihar and Kishanganj, respectively. Both the candidates won, although the margin of victory was thin. Anwar won by 49,863 votes and Javed won by a margin of 59,692 votes.
On the other hand, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which is said to have a strong and effective vote bank of Yadavs and Muslims, had fielded two Muslim candidates but lost in both the seats.
The RJD had fielded Mohammad Ali Ashraf Fatmi from the Madhubani Lok Sabha seat and Shahnawaz Alam from Araria seat of Seemanchal.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Fatmi lost the Madhubani seat to Ashok Yadav of the BJP by a margin of around 1.5 lakh votes. In Araria, Alam lost to BJP MP Pradeep Kumar Singh in a close contest. The margin of victory on this seat is around 21 thousand votes.
The defeat of both the Muslim candidates of RJD has raised questions about whether RJD’s MY (Muslim-Yadav) vote bank is disintegrating on the ground.
The defeat of the party’s Muslim candidates comes at a time when RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav himself has been trying to wash the Muslim- Yadav tag from his party. Earlier at several occasions, he has publicly said that the RJD is a party of A to Z.
Sources say that in the last assembly elections, it was observed that whenever Muslim candidates were fielded by RJD, the Yadav voters of those seats did not vote for them. In the 2020 assembly elections, RJD had given tickets to 17 Muslim leaders, out of which only 8 candidates won.
Similarly, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, RJD fielded four Muslim candidates, but none of them could win. Perhaps this was the reason behind fielding fewer Muslims this time.
In a recent interview, on the question of fielding only two Muslims candidates, Tejashwi had said that sometimes political circumstances become such that one has to take ‘tough decisions’.
The Wire spoke with many ground level party workers of Araria and Madhubani and found that RJD’s Muslim-Yadav vote bank is no longer that strong and secure and Muslim voters are also looking at other options.
How RJD lost Madhubani
There are around five lakh Muslim voters in the Madhubani Lok Sabha constituency and the number of Yadav voters is around two lakh. At the same time, the number of Brahmin voters is estimated to be three lakh. In view of the large population of Muslims and Yadavs, RJD had fielded Mohammad Ali Ashraf Fatmi.
Originally from Darbhanga, Fatmi had contested the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Darbhanga on the party ticket but lost the election by a narrow margin.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Fatmi received 4,00,909 votes. He lost to BJP candidate Ashok Yadav, who belongs to Yadav caste, by a margin of about 1.5 lakh votes.
“Muslim voters voted overwhelmingly for RJD, but Yadav voters did not vote for Fatmi sahab, which led to the RJD candidate’s defeat,” a Muslim RJD worker from the Bisfi assembly segment, which falls under Madhubani Lok Sabha constituency, told The Wire.
The worker added that Muslim voters of the RJD are closely observing the development.
“RJD’s MY (Muslim and Yadav) equation is crumbling on the ground. If RJD does not understand this problem, its effect will be seen in next year’s assembly elections as well,” the RJD worker said.
Another RJD worker from the Yadav community, on the condition of anonymity, told The Wire, “A majority of Yadav voters voted for BJP’s Ashok Yadav because he belongs to their caste. RJD got around 25-30 per cent of Yadav votes.”
Mohammad Shabbir, a Congress leader from the Harlakhi Assembly segment, which falls under the Madhubani Lok Sabha constituency, says, “In Madhubani, the RJD candidate got 100 percent Muslim votes, but the Yadavs did not vote. If the situation remains the same then it will be difficult to win the 2025 assembly elections.”
Interestingly, Congress registered a 100 percent strike rate with its Muslim candidates.
“This win proves that the trust of Muslims is now being restored in Congress again,” says Congress worker Shabbir.
The claim of RJD getting the bulk of Muslim votes in Madhubani is also validated in the figures. Apart from Fatmi, there were three more candidates from the Muslim community from Madhubani, one of whom, Mohhamad Waqar Siddiqui, was in the fray on an All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) ticket. All three Muslim candidates collectively received only 11,207 votes, which is just 7.4 percent of the margin of defeat of Md. Ali Ashraf Fatmi.
In neighbouring Jhanjharpur lok sabha seat, the INDIA Alliance had fielded Samir Mahaseth of Vikas-Sheel Insan Party (VIP) who is resident of Madhubani. Local RJD workers were angry at this as they were asking for a ticket for Gulab Rai, a party leader from the region. Gulab Rai then left RJD and fought on a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket.
Even though Rai didn’t get substantial votes, a RJD worker told The Wire, “Many RJD voters voted for BJP.”
In the neighbouring Darbhanga seat, RJD fielded Lalit Yadav, who belongs to Yadav caste in a hope to get Muslim and Yadav votes. In Darbhanga, there are around 3.5 lakh Muslim and 1.5 lakhs Yadav voters. Upper caste Brahmin voters are around four lakh.
But once again, on the ground, Muslim-Yadav formula didn’t work in favour of the RJD.
“Lalit Yadav would not campaign with Muslims by his side. He thought that keeping Muslims along will polarise the Hindu electorate. He also avoided going to Muslim populated villages, but it worked against him and Muslims voters didn’t vote for him,” Faizan Akhtar Fatmi, who runs a news portal in Darbhanga, told The Wire.
Lalit Yadav is a three-time MLA from the Darbhanga Rural assembly seat, which is part of Darbhanga Lok Sabha.
“He has been winning the seat since 2010 with the support of Muslim votes but this time he didn’t get Muslim votes of Darbhanga Rural,” he said.
Muslim votes got split in Araria
In the 2014 general elections, RJD candidate Taslimuddin had won from the Araria Lok Sabha seat. He passed away in 2017, and the party had fielded his son Sarfaraz Alam in the 2018 by-election which he won. But he lost in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. BJP leader Pradeep Kumar Singh had won this seat by a margin of about 1.37 lakh votes.
In this year’s elections, instead of giving ticket to Sarfaraz, RJD chose his brother Shahnawaz Alam, who had become MLA in the 2020 assembly elections on an AIMIM ticket. In June 2022, Shahnawaz had left the AIMIM and joined RJD.
Local sources say that Shahnawaz’s brother Sarfaraz was active in the area because it was believed that the party would give him the ticket, but at the last moment he was denied the ticket, so he remained completely inactive in the elections.
Araria Lok Sabha has about 40 percent Muslim, 28 percent extremely backward class (EBC) and 11 percent scheduled caste votes. Yadavs make just 10 percent of total votes.
Local workers claim that the entire Muslim vote in Araria did not go to the RJD candidate. A portion of it got divided among other dummy Muslim candidates including the BJP.
In Araria, apart from the two main contenders Pradeep Kumar Singh and Shahnawaz Alam, five other Muslim candidates were in the fray. All these candidates got a total of 40192 votes, which is double the margin of defeat of Shahnawaz Alam. He lost by a margin of 20094 votes.
“A section of Muslim voters is not with the RJD. A Muslim candidate who was in fray as an independent who got the support of many Muslim voters from the area,” said Sakilur Rahman, a voter from the Araria assembly constituency.
Tanzil Asif, founder of Seemanchal-based media portal Main Media, told The Wire, “Muslims and Yadav votes by and large remained with RJD. Other caste groups also voted for RJD.”
“If you look at the data it seems that the dummy candidates played spoiler for RJD. Additionally anger among Pappu Yadav’s supporters and the candidate’s own brother Sarfaraz’s supporters also played its role in the defeat of Shahnawaz,” said Asif.
Pappu Yadav had joined Congress before the election as he was promised a ticket from Purnia. But the seat had gone to RJD.
“Pappu Yadav blamed Tejashwi for not giving the Purnia ticket to Congress. This angered his supporters in Araria as well who voted against Shahnawaz Alam,” added Asif.
Read all of The Wire’s reporting on and analysis of the 2024 election results here.