Close contest in 2020, SC seats in Bihar swing in NDA’s favour this time

In the 2020 Assembly elections, the NDA had won 21 SC seats against the Mahagathbandhan’s 17. That year, the then undivided Lok Janshakti Party, which counts the Dalit Paswan community as its core base, had contested independently and dented the prospects of the JD(U) and RJD in reserved seats without winning any itself.

The outcomes in the state’s two ST seats remain unchanged from the 2020 polls, with the Congress again winning in Motihari and the BJP retaining Katoria.

Among the 38 SC seats this time, the JD(U) is the leading NDA constituent, winning 13 of the 16 such seats it contested. The BJP, meanwhile, managed a perfect record in its SC seats, with 12 wins from 12 seats contested. The Chirag Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) won five of the eight SC seats it contested. The Jitan Ram Manjhi-led Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular), which has a base among the Dalit Musahars, won all four SC seats it contested.

The JD(U) recorded the biggest improvement in SC seats compared to 2020, when it won eight seats. The BJP, too, raised its tally from nine SC seats. HAM(S) won three SC seats in 2020, and the Mukesh Sahani-led Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), which was then an NDA member and now is in the Opposition alliance, won one.

But it has been an abysmal showing for the Mahagathbandhan this year. The RJD won all four of the alliance’s SC seats, despite contesting the most such seats at 20. The Congress failed to win any of the 12 SC seats it contested. It was the same case with the CPI(M-L)L and CPI, which contested six and two seats, respectively. Notably, in two of these seats, the Mahagathabandhan was engaged in ‘friendly fights’ — in Raja Pakar seat, the Congress took on the CPI, and in Sikandra, the RJD and Congress faced each other.

The outcome for the Mahagathbandhan marked a sharp decline from 2020. Five years ago, the RJD had won nine SC seats, followed by the Congress and Left parties at four each.

Despite its poor performance, the RJD had the highest vote share across SC seats at 21.75%, followed by the JD(U) at 19.07%, the BJP at 15.84%, the LJP(RV) at 9.17%, the Congress at 8.48%, the CPI(M-L)L at 6.4%, and the HAM(S) at 4.91%.

The Jan Suraaj, which failed to win any seat, recorded a 3.48% vote share in SC seats. The Dalit-oriented Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) got 1.63% but also drew a blank.

In recent state and national elections, the BJP and the Congress have often clashed over issues such as the Constitution, reservation, and underrepresentation of deprived sections. However, in Bihar, where caste plays a major role in voting behaviour, the two parties have tended to leave a majority of the SC seats for their regional allies, an analysis of the parties’ candidate selection shows.
In these elections too, regional parties both in the NDA and Mahagathbandhan have contested the lion’s share of SC seats.

Ahead of the elections, Bihar BJP spokesperson Anamika Paswan had said the Nitish Kumar government brought in welfare schemes, specifically for Mahadalits, and that had led to Dalit voters shifting towards the NDA.

Paswan had said that since voting is largely caste-based in the state, major parties such as the BJP often accommodate allies that are dominant among local communities by allotting them the SC-reserved seats. She said the undivided LJP had contested separately in 2020, but since the Chirag Paswan-led faction is back in the NDA, the BJP gave it some of the SC constituencies this time.

Congress spokesperson Anshul Avijit said SC-reserved constituencies had traditionally been his party’s strongholds, but with the rise of coalition politics, wider distribution of these constituencies became the norm during consensus-driven seat negotiations.