Whom Should Muslims Vote for in the Bihar Elections?

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By Syed Ali Mujtaba, Edited by Adam Rizvi, The India Observer, TIO: The burning topic debated in Bihar among the Muslims right now is who they should vote for in the upcoming election to be held on November 6 and 11, 2025. This time, Muslims have several choices: Mahagathbandhan with the RJD-Congress and others in a grand alliance. The second is the AIMIM of Assaduddin Owasi in a Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA). Third is the Jan Sawraj Party of the pollster Prashant Kishore. Fourth is the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s party, Janata Dal United.

Assessing the Muslim Options

The Mahagathbandhan has not given enough tickets to the Muslims. The Congress and RJD combined have fielded only 8 Muslim candidates. This is a minuscule figure given the fact that the community has a say in 87 constituencies where they have over 20% population.

The second choice for the Muslims is Assaduddin Owasi’s AIMIM, which is contesting on 35 seats. The AIMIM is reported to have formed the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA), which will contest on 64 SE seats. The GDA comprises AIMIM, Chandrasekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party (ASP), and Swami Prasad Maurya’s Apna Janata Party (AJP). The AIMIM will contest from 35 seats, ASP from 25 seats, and AJP from 4. To remind, in the 2020 election, AIMIM had won 5 seats, but later four of its MLAs defected to the RJD. Therefore, AIMIM’s image is under suspicion, and it remains to be seen how it can convince the Muslim voters that its loyalty is intact with the community.

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Pollster Prashant Kishore’s Jan Swaraj Party is contesting on all 243 seats in Bihar. He has promised 40 seats to the Muslim candidates out of 205 seats where Muslims are eligible to contest. The Jan Swaraj Party is contesting the election for the first time, and its founder, Prashant Kishore, has given 10 to 150 seats to his own party.  In such a situation, it will be detrimental for the Muslim community to back the Jan Swraj Party in Bihar.

The fourth choice is the Janata Dal United of Nitish Kumar. The credit goes to Nitish Kumar for breaking the backbone of Lalu Yadav’s 31 % ‘M-Y’ alliance and creating a vote bank of 36 % comprising mostly extremely backward castes. Within that is the Pasmanda Muslim vote bank, which is 67% of the Muslim population.  These backward castes have economically benefited from Nitish Kumar’s social engineering. Further, the caste census done by the Nitish government has brought more extreme backward groups to avail the benefits of being underprivileged. So, many Muslims among the community may vote for Nitish Kumar, mindful of the fact that the JDU is in alliance with the BJP.

Muslims have not been given enough tickets

 Muslims account for 18% of Bihar’s population, spiking to more than 40% in the northern districts, but they are hardly spotted among candidate lists released by the political parties.

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The ruling Janata Dal (United), contesting 101 seats, has so far announced to give four seats to the Muslim candidates. The opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has given only 4 tickets to Muslims. The Congress has announced to give only four seats to the Muslims. The Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) has fielded only one Muslim candidate. The Jan Suraaj Party has announced to field 40 Muslim candidates. The BJP has decided not to field any Muslim candidate.

The distribution of the tickets by the political parties suggests that the big parties do not consider Muslims’ electoral muscle, that is, over 20% in 87 constituencies. This is a grim reminder that when the political parties under the impact of the BJP are shutting the doors for the political empowerment of the Muslims. The community has to rise to the occasion and flex its electoral muscles to prove its point that, in the game of numbers, it can outflank the others

Shifting Muslim vote bank

In the last Assembly election in 2020, the JD (U) fielded 11 Muslim candidates, all of whom lost the poll.  The RJD had put 17 Muslim candidates, of which eight won. Of the 10 Muslim candidates fielded by the Congress, four had won. The AIMIM fielded 20 Muslim candidates, of which five won. Similarly, the Bahujan Samaj Party fielded a lone Muslim candidate who defected to the JDU after winning the seat.

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Pasmanda Muslims, Nitish Kumar’s trump card, have fared worse in terms of electoral representation. In the 2020 election, there were just five Pasmanda MLAs, four from the AIMIM and one from the RJD. So far, Pasmanda Muslims have just 18% of Muslim MLAs despite the community accounting for 73% of the State’s 2.3 crore Muslim population.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav used to boast that his party’s key to electoral success is based on ‘MY’ vote bank, which accounts for 31% of the electorate (17% Muslim plus  14% Yadav caste. Prasad ruled the state from 1990 to 2005 on this winning formula of electoral arithmetic.   This was undone by JD(U)  supremo Nitish Kumar, who carved out a new vote bank of 36% comprising extremely backward castes. It is based on this formula that Nitish Kumar juggled the caste calculus and held power for more than two decades in Bihar.

Alas, this time JDU is on a slippery wicket. According to pollster Prashant Kishore, JD(U) would struggle to win even “25 seats.” With the infighting within the NDA over the seat sharing, the poll picture has only grown bleaker for Nitish Kumar and his JDU. “The NDA is definitely on its way out and Nitish Kumar will not return as Chief Minister,” Prashant Kishore has said.

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Why Muslims Matter in Bihar

Bihar is politically divided into North and South. While north Bihar holds approximately 140 constituencies the South Bihar holds approximately 100 seats. This is out of the total 243 assembly constituencies go to the polls in Bihar.

So the Bihar election is decided by the North voters whose voting pattern is crucial for determining election outcomes. It is here that Muslims come into the picture because they are about 75% of the voters who live in northern Bihar.

It is in north Bihar’s Seemanchal region, where there are 24 assembly constituencies, where the Muslim population is over 20% to 70 percent. In the districts like Araria, Katihar, Kishanganj, and Purnia, the Muslim population is over 40%.   In Kishanganj district, Muslims account for over 68% of the population. Katihar and Araria districts have an approximate of 44.47% and 42.95% of the Muslim population. Madhubani, Bhagalpur, and East Champaran districts have a 15% Muslim population. So in Muslims cannot be an outcast I the electoral democracy of Bihar

Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was done to prune Muslim voters

The Election Commission of India, to break the electoral supremacy of the Muslims, has done a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voters’ list. In the Seemanchal region, Kishanganj, Araria, Purnia, and Katihar, with a high Muslim population, the average total deletion rate is astronomical compared to the rest of the state.

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 The SIR exercise was executed in a manner that the constituencies won by the two main ‘Mahagathbandhan’ partners, the RJD and the INC, have the highest average deletion rates. The higher deletions appear to be in general seats, which is where the demographic combination of Muslim + Yadav + other social groups is most affected. The SIR exercise was done to prune the ‘Mahagatbandhan’ candidates because in the last election outcomes in dozens of seats, many Muslim candidates lost by a marginal difference. As such, the SIR has seriously affected the Muslim voters who are facing the polls with such a handicap in Bihar.

Historic underrepresentation of Muslims in Bihar

Historically, Bihar Muslims have always suffered from chronic electoral underrepresentation. The number of Muslim MLAs in the State Assembly has never crossed 10%, except marginally in 1985 when there were 34 Muslim MLAs in the 324-member legislative assembly of undivided Bihar. In 2020, the last Assembly election, only 19 Muslim MLAs made it into the house of 243 members.

Core issues of the Muslims

The core issue for Muslims is to increase their falling numbers in the state assembly. The Muslim population ranges from 20% to 70 % in 87 assembly constituencies.  The 24 constituency in the Seemanchal region is their pocket borough. Another 25 seats can be easily added to this tally if Muslims know how to play the electoral game of numbers in a democracy. So if Muslims are organized, they can at least have 50 plus MLAs in the Bihar assembly.

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The community, for this, needs a full-time psephologist to increase the number of Muslims in the state assembly. An increased number of seats will lead to the making of the public policy decision in favor of the Muslims. Muslims need jobs in the government, and this can only happen if public policy is made in their favor. The social empowerment of the Muslims is linked to their political empowerment. If the Muslim community does not wake up to improve their number of seats in the assembly, there will be only a hard time for them ahead. They should remember the phrase, “Bato Gey to Kato Gey” (if divided, you may not survive).

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Curated by Humra Kidwai

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