Bihar election 2025: Those who have lived the politics of Biharunderstand that the numbers, Maths and chances don’t work here. The ground reality in the crucial Hindi-heartland state has always been the core behind the politics that drives it. As it undergoes the first phase of polling across 121 constituencies on Thursday, it becomes important to understand what is actually on the ground.
Majorly, there are three factors that are having the maximum influence on the Bihar election 2025, and will have an impact on the results as well for sure. Caste, women and youth.
[img=1px,1px]https://data.indianexpress.com/election2019/track_1x1.jpg[/img]Psephologist Pradeep Gupta of Axis My India elaborated on how and why these three factors are impacting Bihar assembly election 2025.
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Bihar’s forever factor – caste
Caste has always been a major deciding factor as far as Bihar elections are concerned. Gupta, in an interview with NDTV, said that around 80 to 90 percent of the people vote based on caste.
He said that most of the castes are aligned with both sides of the alliances. The key is with the OBCs and EBCs. The upper caste OBC, EBC are with the NDA, he said. He added that the popular MY-Muslim Yadav formula also covers a significant number of voters.
“To my mind, this time in particular, those 16% Dalit, among those 16%, 5% are Paswan, 5% are Jatav and 6% are non-Jatav. So many other Dalits are involved in that. Among the EBCs also some of the family and this time particularly, 4% Malla are the Nisar voters,” he said, based on the ground assessment his team does as part of the Exit Poll Survey.
About 31-32% are Muslim and Yadav and if the Mahagathbandhan are able to get about 12 or 13% among these 20%, he said, they will move ahead, otherwise NDA is there. As for Dalits, Pradeep Gupta said Paswans are by and large, “we know that NDA is having the edge”.
On Prashant Kishor, he said that since the Jan Suraajfounder belongs to the upper caste, it is likely he would cut some NDA votes.
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Will women decide the winner?
The second big factor, which was evident from the campaigning as well, is women of Bihar. They turnout in large numbers and, Gupta said, 50 out of 100 votes are caste by women.
Even the NDA, and Mahagathbandhan have focused on schemes that can benefit women of the state. A section that has long backed Nitish Kumar, women are a crucial factor in this year’s assembly elections as well.
Bihar youths – will they change the game?
The youth, aged between 18-30, are a major factor holding potential to turn the Bihar election results in anyone’s favour. Gupta reminded there was a time when heads of families would decide whom the members would vote for, but now, the youths are in command.
“Now we know that youth as a consistency is more skewed towards the Tejaswi and to the Prashant Kishore, so here he is going to dent the prospect of Mahagathbandhan…When you were talking about 2020 election, LJP contest separately and secured 6% vote, denting 33 seats of JDU,” he said.
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“Means, had NDA and LJP fought together, they could have secured about 158 seats,” he said.
Tejashwi, he mentioned, has the support of youth, but those above 40 are a bit skeptical so far. |
