Caste to play a vital role in Bihar polls. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is banking a lot on "populist scheme" of Vote-chori and electoral revisions to help restore its former glory.
The Election Commission has said that "ineligible electors" removed from the draft list stood at 3.66 lakh.
It said 21.53 lakh eligible electors were added to the draft list taking the total in the final rolls published on September 30 to 7.42 crore voters.
Bihar assembly elections are round the corner. Despite having his party's and his father Lalu Prasad Yaday's name tainted by a number of scandals, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav is tipped to be the next chief minister if BJP-JD(U)-LJP combine is humbled.
Tejashwi is 39 and hails from the dominant Yadav caste. Around 35 percent of those polled in a recent survey chose Tejashwi Yadav as "the most preferred candidate to be next Chief Minister of Bihar". However, there is a five percent drop in the popularity since February this year.
The BJP has been massaging the collective ego of the Hindu community by linking all the games to patriotism. Caste matters a lot but Bihar's politico-caste game is always an unsolvable puzzle.
Traditionally, the saffron party has been generally sympathetic to anti-Naxal militia Ranvir Sena and its leader Brahmeshwar Mukhiya.
Brahmeshwar is a Bhumihar chieftain. Thus, BJP traditionally has been also the first choice of the Bhumihars.
In 2015, the Lotus party had fielded 18 Bhumihars as against over 30 Rajputs, who had always stayed away from Bhumihars and BJP.
As it is from 2014 itself, Bhumihars were unhappy over BJP's alliance with pro-Dalit LJP. In the past too Rajputs as a caste flocked to the RJD chief Lalu Prasad after Congress lost sheen so much so that the RJD in 2009 had four Lok Sabha MPs - three were Rajputs.
There is another of looking at the caste equations for power in Patna.
The rise of Dalits and EBCs is perhaps the most significant transformation in recent decades. Together, Dalits (19.65 per cent) and EBCs (36 per cent) make up more than half of Bihar’s population.
Once fragmented, they are now asserting a distinct political identity. The Paswans, or Dusadhs (5.3 per cent) has a loyal Dalit vote base for Chirag Paswan.
The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) uses this to bargain for seats in alliances. Chirag is a minister in the Modi cabinet in Delhi and thus LJP is a key NDA constituent.
The EBCs are a powerful but heterogeneous bloc. No longer subsumed under OBC politics, they demand separate recognition, reservation benefits, and representation.
They could be decisive in close contests even as the sub-caste rivalries sometimes fragment their strengths.
The Bhumihar population constitutes about 2.86 per cent of Bihar's total population.
Historically, landowners and education-builders, Bhumihars were central to Congress-era politics. They produced leaders like Shri Krishna Sinha, Bihar’s first chief minister, and dominated the administration.
Post-Mandal, many drifted towards the BJP, which crafted an upper caste-OBC coalition. In districts along the Ganga belt, Bhumihars continue to be influential, even if their statewide clout has diminished.
In terms of popular face; Nitish Kumar is the face of NDA. But he is growing in age pretty fast.
Dust plumes waft above poorly maintained roads. Things have changed a lot since Nitish came to power rising a strong anti-Lalu wave in 2005. But as in most regions of the country; the conditions of the roads appears like a scar in many places.
But governance improved under Nitish and he is also called 'Vikas Purush' - the development man. But he has crossed his prime.
The surveys suggest a "fluctuating trend" in Nitish Kumar’s popularity. In February opinion poll, around 18 percent had chosen him for the CM post. This number dropped to 15 percent in April, rose to 18 percent in June and again declined to 14 percent in August.
Now it is around 16 percent in September 2025.
The BJP is banking on the "Narendra Modi" factor, which is drawing diehard fans of the BJP leader and prime minister to vote for its candidate irrespective of that person's religion, caste or other merits as a politician.
This is on top of the BJP's pro-Hindu slant.
"People are proud of the party's pro-Hindu ideology," - is the refrain of many BJP leaders.
Will Prashant Kishore emerge as a dark horse ?
Political strategist-turned politician Prashant Kishor's popularity as the most-favoured Chief Minister shot to 23 percent in the latest C-Voter opinion poll.
It was 21 percent in August, 18 percent in July and 14 percent in February. The real battle could be triangular and this has made things more difficult to predict.
The poll managers in both the Congress and the BJP in many parts of the state believe the respective party can retain "traditional support base among upper-caste voters".
The big challenge is to win over neglected sections of the Dalit people. The Congress has organisational weakness and this gives the Lotus party a huge advantage.
The RJD continues to bank on Yadavs and Muslims, the JD(U) relies on Kurmis, EBCs, and non-Yadav OBCs, and the BJP combines upper castes with sections of OBCs and Dalits.
Yadavs, at 14.27 per cent of Bihar’s population, are the single largest OBC group.
Concentrated in rural areas and among medium landholders, they gained unprecedented political power under Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Since 1990, the RJD has relied heavily on the Yadav-Muslim (17-18 per cent) combination. Even today, under Tejashwi Yadav, this coalition remains the party’s backbone.
Though Kurmis make up only 2.87 per cent of the population, their influence far exceeds their numbers.
Traditionally prosperous cultivators, they invested early in education and organisation. Their most prominent leader is Nitish Kumar,
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| Election is more often a Festival : Political supporters wear masks of various candidates in Karnataka: file snap |
For Prashant Kishore, a latent change of wave persists. Shopkeepers and taxi drivers speak openly against Nitish Kumar for frequent change of political stance.
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