How did castes perform in Bihar assembly polls? | Number Theory

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As the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured an overwhelming victory over the Mahagathbandhan (MGB) in the Bihar assembly elections, these pages have analysed the victory in detail. There is, however, another important question worth asking. How did the candidates of different social groups perform in these Bihar elections?

Women wait for their turn to cast votes during the Bihar assembly elections, in Bihar's West Champaran. (HT)

Was their performance driven by just social identity or also the political alliance they contested from? Are these patterns confined to broad social groups or do they vary at the sub-caste or jati level too? This story will answer these questions on the basis of the candidate database of the two major alliances in Bihar prepared by the first author of this story.

How did castes perform in Bihar assembly polls?

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  Non-Yadav BCs had the best strike rate, Muslims the worst

  Of the 498 candidates put up by the NDA and MGB – this includes 12 friendly fights within the MGB and also 4 assembly constituencies (ACs) where nominations of these candidates were cancelled – the highest number was from the proverbial Hindu upper castes or those who do not belong to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Backward Class (BC) or Extremely Backward Class (EBC) groups. In Bihar, the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) are divided into BCs and EBCs. The Hindu upper castes also have the largest number of MLAs in the assembly. However, the social group with the highest strike rate is that of non-Yadav BCs, which has seen 58 MLAs being elected from a candidate pool of just 97. Muslims and Yadavs (a subset of BCs) have the worst and second worst strike rates. As is to be expected given the wide difference in overall strike rate of the NDA and the MGB, all social groups including even Muslims have a better strike rate as NDA candidates than MGB candidates. Simply speaking it means that a Muslim had a bigger probability of winning the election as an NDA candidate than a MGB one. To be sure, this is a manifestation of five Muslim candidates of the AIMIM winning this time. While upper caste MGB candidates had by far the worst strike rate, non-Yadav BC and SC candidates from the NDA had strike rates bordering almost 90%.
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  Kurmis have the highest strike rate among sub-castes who had at least ten candidates

  There are six sub-castes in HT’s candidate database which have recorded a perfect strike rate of 100% in these elections. But all of them had just one or two candidates and every one of them had been fielded by the NDA. Among the major sub-castes, which had at least ten candidates in the electoral fray, Kurmis have left every one behind with a strike rate of 84.2%. While they are ranked fifth in terms of number of overall MLAs behind Rajputs, Koeris, Yadavs and Bhumihars, these four sub-castes have a significantly lower strike rate than Kurmis. The fact that the state’s incumbent and perhaps next chief minister, Nitish Kumar, is also a Kurmi, only underlines the political prowess of this sub-caste in Bihar today. Once again, there are significant differences in strike rate at the sub-caste level between the two major alliances. 15 sub-castes including Kurmis have a 100% strike rate from the NDA and they have won a total of 48 MLAs from them. For the MGB on the other hand, no sub-caste had a strike rate more than 33.3%.
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  To be sure, the new Bihar assembly is far from socially representative

  This is the most important factor when it comes to a caste-wise analysis of the new Bihar assembly. 51% of the total MLAs come from just five sub-castes which have a combined share of just 15.7% in the state’s population. The cumulative MLA share hits 75% and 90% at their sub-castes’ combined population share of just 50% and 61.4%. This only underlines what we had pointed out in a three-part series before the results: political competition in Bihar continues to be a contest between competing elites with tactical alliances with other social groups.