The caste chemistry of the candidates jumping in the poll arena in Bihar will be an interesting aspect to be watched. The major parties and alliances might be talking about development in public but actually they are more concerned about social engineering on the basis of caste.
If the NDA is depending largely on upper castes, its main rival Maha Gathbandhan is relying on OBCs, particularly Yadav, Kurmi Kushwaha besides Muslims. Scheduled Caste is on the menu of both the rivals. The NDA is playing its card to woo Yadav, traditionally the vote-bank of RJD for the last two decades, and trying to dent in the constituency of lalu Prasad. If NDA gave tickets to 25 Yadavs, the grand alliance gave a record number of 64 tickets to this OBC section which is numerically strong having about 14 per cent of voters. As a result, 89 Yadavs have so far been nominated and no other single caste could outnumber it. This number could further go up as NDA parties are yet to declare many seats.
The upper castes dominate the NDA lists and 85 of various castes have been accommodated while Gathbandhan gave 38 tickets to this section of the society. Over one hundred upper caste people including 47 Rajputs, 42 Bhumihars have been nominated by these parties.
The RJD and JD (U) have jointly given 97 tickets to MY (Muslim and Yadav) combination. These two parties and Congress accommodated 33 Muslim candidates as against NDA’s nine. The BJP gave tickets to only two Muslims including its sitting Amour MlA Saba Zafar and a new face Abdul Rahman from Kochadhaman.
More surprising was the denial of tickets to prominent Muslim leaders like former JD(U) MP Monazir Hasan, and former Ministers Jamshed Ashraf and Akhlaq Ahmad who joined BJP much before the election.
A look at the list of the NDA and Gathbandhan clearly indicates that the two rivals have arranged their soldiers in the battle field not in a military precision but thoroughly on the lines of castes and determined to cut into the support base of each other through caste.
A big competition is to compete in wooing the EBCs (extremely backward castes). The gathbandhan is focusing on Kurmi and Kushwaha to whom the alliance gave 39 tickets in bid to counter the threat posed by Upendra Kushwaha’s RlSP. The NDA gave tickets to luv and Kush castes only 23 seats. Expectedly the Vaish, traditional BJP supporters, were given 18 tickets by NDA mainly BJP while alliance gave only six tickets to this society.
Dalit and Maha dalit section is also being lured by both the alliances. With Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi in the NDA, the BJP hopes to get maximum support from this section but the gathbandhan is also concentrating on Maha Dalits and fielding 38 candidates belonging to this society. The NDA parties have fielded 34 scheduled castes.