Politics in India's Muslim dominated ACs -1

The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) becoming the party with the largest number of Muslim MLAs in Bihar has raised serious questions on the ability of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to retain its Muslim-Yadav or MY support base in the state.

- By Abhishek Jha and Roshan Kishore

The AIMIM on its part, made an issue of the RJD enjoying the support of Muslims but giving little to the community in terms of a share in power. The Bihar developments raise a larger question about Muslims and Indian politics. Has the nature of representation in assembly constituencies (ACS) which have a higher-than-average share of Muslims in India changed in the recent past? This two-part data journalism series will try to answer this question. The first part will give an idea about the number of ACs in India by their share of Muslim population and the second will look at the changes in their party-wise representation.

Muslim population in India is not uniformly distributed