The resurrection of ‘coalition of extremes’ in Bihar
The NDA triumphed over the MGB in Bihar, leveraging a coalition of Hindu upper castes and non-Yadav BCs, while Yadav representation declined significantly.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has vanquished the Mahagathbandhan (MGB) or Grand Alliance in Bihar. While elections are rarely a univariate phenomenon, caste is often central to politics in India, and perhaps more so in Bihar. This makes it important to look at the election results from the prism of caste in the state. HT will do this by using two databases – caste-wise database of NDA and MGB candidates in these elections and a historic caste database of Bihar’s MLAs from 1962 – prepared by the first author of this story to make this analysis. Here are key takeaways from our analysis based on these two databases.
PTI photo
The ‘subaltern’ engine has powered the NDA’s ‘coalition of extremes’ this time
Nitish Kumar’s political genius and his indispensability lies in the fact that he has managed to bring together Hindu upper castes, non-Yadav Backward Classes (BCs) and Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) against what was once a formidable Muslim-Yadav or MY coalition of Lalu Yadav. This combine has worked wonders once again in these elections. This is best seen in the caste-breakup of MLAs from the two major alliances in the state. While the MGB has managed to get just 5 and 12 Muslim and Yadav MLAs elected, the number of Hindu upper caste, non-Yadav BCs and EBCs that the NDA has managed to get elected is 70, 50 and 32, respectively. The fact that the number of non-Yadav BCs and EBCs in NDA’s overall bench strength in the new assembly is significantly greater than that of upper castes shows that Nitish’s ‘coalition of extremes’ has achieved a more optimal non-upper caste composition than it could in the 2010 elections, the only one when its victory was of a similar scale as this time.
See Chart 1: Caste break-up of NDA and MGB MLAs
See Chart 2: Caste break-up of NDA MLAs in 2010 and 2025
But the EBCs and non-Yadav BCs have made gains at the cost of Yadavs rather than upper castes
HT graphics
This is the most important part behind the resilience of the ‘coalition of extremes’. While the share of non-Yadav BC and EBC MLAs in Bihar assembly has reached its highest ever level this time, this increase has come at the cost of Yadavs and Muslims rather than upper castes, the other stakeholder in Nitish’s social engineering. The share of Yadav MLAs in Bihar assembly has collapsed to just 27, the second lowest since 1962, the earliest period for which HT’s caste database of Bihar MLAs has this data. What is important is that this collapse is not just because of a poor performance by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in the state. While the RJD’s seat count of 25 in 2025 is pretty similar to what it was in 2010 (22), the share of Yadav MLAs in Bihar assembly is more than five percentage points lower this time than it was in 2010. This shows that the consolidation of Yadavs behind the RJD has triggered a larger process of their alienation in the state’s political landscape.
See Chart 3: Upper caste-Yadav-non Yadav BC-EBC-Muslim historical vote share in Bihar
Nishant Ranjan has been working as a data journalist with Hindustan Times since 2023. In this short period, he has established a niche for creating original datasets and utilising them to produce journalistic work that pushes the boundaries of journalism. The list of datasets and stories done by him include the following: a dataset of all 717 chief ministers India has had since 1952, a dataset of all 3,350 members of India’s council of ministers, a dataset of all 190 deputy chief ministers in India and a dataset of all 279 Supreme Court judges in India (1950-2025). He has also profiled each elected Muslim MLA/MP since 1952. He is a mining engineer by training who decided to pursue a Master's in Development Studies from TISS after working in a coal mine for 10 months. He also worked as a research associate at the Centre for Policy Research, researching local governance in India. He also has a keen interest in analyzing electoral politics and political executives in India.Read More
Roshan Kishore is the Data and Political Economy Editor at Hindustan Times. He heads the newsroom's data journalism team, which produces Number Theory, a daily data-driven feature for the print edition and the HT app. Number Theory uses data analysis and story-telling based on it to add value to the newsroom’s daily coverage by putting stories in a larger context on a range of issues, including politics, macroeconomy, markets, global affairs and climate. Under his leadership HT’s data journalism work has established itself as a niche product in Indian journalism and pushed the boundaries of marrying academic rigour with news sense and speed. Along with writing and editing data stories, he has also been writing a weekly political economy column called Terms of Trade for HT Premium.
A trained economist with an MPhil degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Kishore has also been a visiting fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania. Along with his journalistic work, his writings have also appeared in journals such as the Economic and Political Weekly and working papers for CASI and UNESCAP.Read More
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