Bihar Elections 2020
By DK Sinha
Patna: Caste arithmetic has always been a dominant factor in Bihar election and 2020 state elections are not different as the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) tries to woo Yadav voters, strong support base of the rival Rashtriya Janata Dal.
BJP has given maximum number of tickets to upper caste candidates, its traditional vote bank, for Bihar polls but even Yadavs, mainly supporters of RJD, have also not been ignored.
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Of the BJP’s 110 candidates, 51 are upper caste, even though they constitute only 16 per cent of Bihar’s population. Of these 51 upper castes, 22 tickets have gone to Rajputs, 15 to Bhumihars, 11 to Brahmins and three to Kayasthas.
The remaining 59 seats have gone to Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes who comprise 74 per cent of the state’s population. Of these, 15 tickets have gone to Yadav. In the last election, BJP had given tickets to 22 Yadavs. This despite the fact that in the last elections, only six of the 22 Yadav candidates managed to win.
In the 2015 assembly polls, the BJP had fielded 65 upper caste candidates, the highest by any party. The party had contested in 157 of the 243 seats and secured victories in 53 of them.
BJP’s ally, JD (U) has given only 19 upper castes figure in the list of 115 candidates. Of these, 10 are Bhumihar, seven are Rajputs and two seats have gone to Brahmins. The JD(U) has, however, handed 18 tickets to Yadav candidates.
In the 2015 assembly elections, the BJP had fielded 30 Rajputs, 18 Bhumihars, 14 Brahmins and three Baniyas. The Yadavs had dominated the 2015 assembly polls. Of the 243 legislators in the outgoing assembly, 61 are Yadavs — every fourth MLA. The majority of them, 42, were from the RJD, followed by the 11 from the JD(U) and six of the BJP.
BJP has been trying hard to woo the younger Yadav voters since 2014. Then party president Amit Shah had appointed Nityanand Rai as the Bihar BJP president in 2014. He has now been inducted into the Union cabinet.
The party has also anointed Ramkripal Yadav, once a close confidante of Lalu Prasad Yadav, Nand Kishore Yadav, Hukum Dev Narayan Yadav and Bhupendra Yadav as star campaigners.
