The resurrection of ‘coalition of extremes’ in Bihar politics

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has vanquished the Mahagathbandhan (MGB) or Grand Alliance in Bihar. While elections are rarely a univariate phenomenon, caste is often central to politics in India, and perhaps more so in Bihar.

- Nishant Ranjan and Roshan Kishore

This makes it important to look at the election results from the prism of caste in the state.

HT will do this by using two databases-caste-wise database of NDA and MGB candidates in these elections and a historic caste database of Bihar's MLAs from 1962-prepared by the first author of this story to make this analysis.

Here are key takeaways from our analysis based on these two databases.

The 'subaltern' engine has powered the NDA's 'coalition of extremes' this time

Nitish Kumar's political genius and his indispensability lies in the fact that he has managed to bring together Hindu upper castes, non-Yadav Backward Classes (BCs) and Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) against what was once a formidable Muslim-Yadav or MY coalition of Lalu Yadav.