November 13, 2025 05:04 PM IST
First published on: Nov 13, 2025 at 04:57 PM IST
The pitch of the Mahagathbandhan, which forged a seven-party alliance this time, may have centred around jobs and change, with Nitish Kumar now the Chief Minister of Bihar for 20 years. But it is likely to come down Friday to whether the coalition’s principal party, RJD, is able to expand its reach beyond its Muslim-Yadav vote base.
Towards that effort, the RJD brought in the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), with its Nishad base, and the new Indian Inclusive Party (IIP), which claims support among the Tanti-Paans.
With the NDA having a wider umbrella – ranging from the BJP’s upper caste base to Nitish’s EBC support, to the Rashtriya Lok Morcha’s Kushwahas, and the LJP’s and Hindustani Awam Morcha (S)’s Dalit backing – the Mahagathbandhan will be hoping its maths will add up to more.
Another thing the coalition is counting on is the appeal of Tejashwi, who is now firmly a leader in his own right in the Mahagathbandhan. The Congress may have held out initially, but it was forced to accept Tejashwi as CM face for the alliance to continue. With the BJP dragging its feet on designating Nitish as the same, the Mahagathbandhan had a headstart in making the contest, at least partially, about a “jaded” Nitish versus “the young and vibrant” Tejashwi.
Given the caste arithmetics, the 36.01% EBCs – covering 113 groups – in the state decide the course of Bihar elections. With 10.5% of the EBCs Muslims, it is essentially the Hindu groups – commonly referred to as “panchpania” or “pachforna” – who are the decisive factor. In this Assembly election, all eyes in this regard are on the VIP and its chief Mukesh Sahani.
On paper, the Mallah leader commands the support of about 9.6% Nishad or riverine EBCs, settled along the river belts of Bihar, and particularly the 2.6% Mallahs. The fact that Sahani, whose VIP is contesting 12 seats, withdrew the candidature of his brother Santosh Sahani from the Gouraboram Assembly seat of Darbhanga, having a sizeable population of Mallah voters, is still a matter of conversation.
Similarly, in its first-ever election, IIP chief I P Gupta got himself three seats in the Mahagathbandhan alliance, purely on the back of the potential support he may draw from the Tanti / Tatma, who were clubbed with the SC Paan, Sawasi and Paanar groups in 2015 and later reverted to EBCs by the Supreme Court. Gupta ran on the agenda of getting the ‘Paan Samaj’ SC status.
The Bihar caste survey puts the Paan, Sawasi and Paamar groups at about 1.7% of the state population, with no separate data for Tantis and Tatmas. While this does not add up to any striking number, the huge crowds Gupta drew for a public meeting he held in Patna’s historic Gandhi Maidan meant he could not be ignored. Ground reports indicate the IIP will do well in at least two of the three seats it contested, Saharsa and Jamalpur.
As for the other Mahagathbandhan members, while the Congress remained a weak link, with its campaign never matching the high of Rahul Gandhi’s Vote Adhikar Yatra in September, the Left may not do much better than the 12 seats won by the CPI (M-L) L in 2020.
The RJD is also contending with the challenge to its Muslim base by the AIMIM, which may take away votes at least in the seats where the minority community is in big numbers. There was vocal discontent among the Muslims over the Mahagathbandhan’s failure to address the issues of the community; the fact that it declared Sahani as Deputy CM but could not make the same promise for a Muslim leader also did not go down well.
Tejashwi’s gambit of attacking Nitish over his health and calling his government “khatara (rickety)” seemed to find limited resonance. His promise of one government job per family was catchy but seen as an overreach, though there are some who are hopeful, given the RJD leader’s track record during his brief tenure in government towards keeping his 2020 promise of 10 lakh jobs.
Friday then will be a battle of caste maths, and what may or may not tilt the scales: Nitish’s vast social and political capital, or the contrast of the young and largely untested Tejashwi?