The Janata Dal (United), led by Bihar’s Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, is witnessing internal turmoil over its support for the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2025, which has now become an Act following the President’s assent. Five prominent Muslim faces of the party have resigned in protest. Before the passage of the Bill, eight major Muslim organisations, including the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), the Imarat-e-Shariah and the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, boycotted the iftar gathering hosted by Nitish Kumar on March 23. Some prominent non-Muslim leaders within the party are also reported to be unhappy with the party’s stand. With state Assembly elections due in October, its potential electoral impact on JD(U) is being keenly debated in Bihar’s politics.
Barring a few leaders like Lalu Prasad, socialists like Nitish Kumar carry the dual distinction of being secular in their outlook and, at the same time, allying with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and, in the past, with its predecessor, Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS). Treating Congress as a common adversary was mostly behind this duality. Hence, a curious coalition of socialist secularism and Hindu nationalism has been one of the salient features of Indian politics. Nitish Kumar has inherited secular socialism but also showed unhesitant readiness to form tactical alliances with the BJP. The tension between these two outlooks has been evident from time to time.
For example, the JD(U) supported the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) when it was passed in Parliament in December 2019, just less than a year before the state Assembly elections in Bihar. Then, it was opposed internally by its prominent faces such as Prashant Kishor and Pavan Varma. Prior to the CAA, in August 2019, though JD(U) opposed revoking Article 370 which gave special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, it refrained from voting against it. The same stand was taken by JD(U) when the BJP brought a bill to abolish and criminalise triple talaq, where it opposed the Bill but did not vote against it, walking out during voting on both occasions, in effect facilitating the passage of Bills. JD(U) also never opposed the Ram Mandir construction or its pran pratishtha (consecration); it just distanced itself from the celebrations. Hence, Muslims have always been suspicious of the party’s commitment to secular politics. Nitish Kumar is seen by Muslims as a collaborator of the BJP or, at best, being non-confrontational when he is expected to intervene in a polarised political landscape.
These examples explain why Muslims have never voted for JD(U) en masse, except when it joined the opposition Mahagathbandhan during the 2015 Assembly elections. In the 2020 Assembly elections, when the party returned to the NDA, it received just five per cent of Muslim votes, mostly from those 11 constituencies where it fielded Muslim candidates. Should the party bother about this minuscule Muslim voting percentage in its favour? The party seems to be divided on the issue, with the powerful section among its leadership inclined to give preference to Hindu votes from all sections, thanks to their alliance with the BJP and other partners of the NDA. However, this points to more complex problems facing the party.
First, with ageing, Nitish Kumar, by all predictions, may not remain active in politics for long. The new generation of leaders in the party does not carry the baggage of secular socialism. Even the party’s working president, Sanjay Jha, has come from the BJP. Second, with the question of succession looming over the party, Nitish Kumar seems to be conceding decision-making space to leaders who are playing a larger role in national politics and, hence, working closely with the central leadership of the BJP. Third, the party has a scarcity of prominent, pan-Bihar OBC faces. After Nitish Kumar, will the party be led by upper-caste leaders? In fact, it is the BJP that has promoted Samrat Chaudhary, belonging to the Koeri caste, an OBC, alongside its upper-caste leadership in Bihar. The BJP seems to need Nitish Kumar not for its Muslim votes but for its OBC and extremely backward caste (EBC) votes. The Waqf (Amendment) Act, inter alia, can further deprive JD(U) of its small Muslim vote share that is crucial in Seemanchal and in those seats where the margin of victory is close.
However, the predicament of other NDA allies, for example, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) led by Chirag Paswan, is no different. He depends on Modi and the NDA for a role in national politics, a ministerial berth, and parliament and state assembly seats. He does not carry the legacy of secular socialism like his father, Ram Vilas Paswan. Routinely, he speaks about the Constitution and secularism, but now that the state elections are coming closer and the situation is getting increasingly communally charged, he is being forced to take sides. Thus, he has taken a calculated risk of alienating Muslims as he banks on consolidating of Hindu votes as part of the NDA. His recent attacks on the RJD and Congress for doing “politics of appeasement”, his support for the Waqf Bill in Parliament, and his defence of Baba Bageshwar’s call for building a “Hindu rashtra” seem to be following a script. Muslims in the state seem to have mobilised themselves behind Mahagathbandhan. However, the coalition does not stand to gain any substantial increase in its vote share from the community’s anger against JD(U), LJP and other NDA alliance partners. By legalising the government’s interference in waqf properties, it’s the BJP that stands to gain overall.
The writer is former professor and dean, Tata Institute of Social Sciences
