As the NDA stormed to victory handing a crushing defeat to the Mahagathbandhan, the number of Muslim MLAs in Bihar Assembly, it appears, is set to be lowest at 10 since 1990 in eight consecutive elections.
Though the Muslim community makes up 17.7% of Bihar’s 13.07 crore population—as per the 2022-23 state caste survey—both the Opposition and the NDA fielded fewer Muslim candidates compared to the 2020 Assembly elections, also contributing to shrinking Muslim representation.
After being snubbed by Lalu Prasad-helmed RJD over its offer to be included in the Mahagathbandhan, Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM won five seats of the 25 it had contested; among the winners are its state unit chief Akhtarul Iman from Amour. The party in 2020 had made big gains by winning all these five seats in the Muslim-dominated Seemanchal—comprising Araria, Purnea, Katihar and Kishanganj districts.
While the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) fielded four Muslim candidates, only Mohd Zama Khan, a minister in the outgoing Cabinet, was leading from Chainpur constituency in Kaimur district. After being elected from this seat on a BSP ticket in 2020, he later joined the JDU. As Chainpur is not a Muslim-dominated seat, BJP leaders had launched a campaign blitz to reach out to the Hindu voters.
JD(U) ally and a pivotal NDA partner LJP (RV) of Chirag Paswan had fielded one Muslim candidate Mohd Kalimuddin from Bahadurganj seat in Kishanganj district, who came third in the battle as AIMIM’s Md Tauseef Alam won by a margin of over 28,726 votes. Congress’s Md Masawar Alam came second.
Tejashwi Yadav-led RJD’s Asif Ahmad won from Bisfi while Bahubali Shahabuddin’s son Osama Sahab won from Raghunathpur. The last time a member of Shahabuddin’s family won an election was 21 years ago. Osama was given the ticket after the party dropped MLA Hari Shanker Yadav as the RJD counted on Raghunathpur’s substantial Yadav population, which has determined its results since the first elections of 1952, plus Muslim, EBC, Dalit and upper caste votes.
In Seemanchal region, the Congress saw a repeat of its 2020 show with its candidates in Kishanganj, Mohd Qamrul Hoda, and Araria, Abidur Rehman, winning in Araria. However, Congress’s CLP leader Shakeel Ahmed Khan lost to JDU’s Dulal Chandra Goswami by a margin of 18,368 votes.
In 2010, Muslim representation in the House was at 7.81% as 19 legislators from the minority community were elected, with the highest seven MLAs from JD(U), six RJD, three Congress, two LJP, and one from the BJP. The BJP’s lone Muslim MLA Saba Zafar had won from Amour constituency in Purnea district against Congress’s Abdul Jalil Mastan.
In 2015, the number of Muslim MLAs went up to 24, with representation at 9.87%. Of them, 12 were from RJD, six Congress, five JD(U) and one CPI(ML) Liberation.
In 2020, the community’s representation in the House shrunk to 19 MLAs, and of them eight were from the RJD, followed by the AIMIM’s five, Congress’s four, and one each from the BSP and CPI(ML) Liberation. The representation in the outgoing Assembly slipped to 7.81%. CM Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) had fielded 11 Muslim candidates, all of them lost.