A few months before the Bihar assembly elections, there was a panic in the JDU when five Muslim leaders left the party led by Nitish Kumar due to the support of the Waqf Amendment Bill. JDU supported the Waqf Bill in both houses of Parliament. This bill increases the monitoring of the government on the management of the assets donated by the Muslims.
Muslim vote was with JDU
JDU leaders are mainly afraid of losing Muslim vote banks before Bihar elections. Although this fear may seem justified at first sight, the data presents a different picture. When Nitish Kumar broke ties with NDA, he got a large part of Muslim votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which broke into the RJD’s core vote bank. But the data of the position after 2015 shows a different picture.
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When Nitish was in the anti -Narendra Modi camp in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and 2015 assembly elections, he had a lot of popularity among Muslim voters. In 2014, when JDU contested in the alliance with the left parties, it got 23.5% Muslim votes, as stated in the CSDS Lokniti Survey. When Nitish was part of the grand alliance in the 2015 assembly elections, the coalition secured 80% Muslim votes, as estimated in reports.
Political picture changed after 2015
However, after 2015, when he decided to join the NDA alliance led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, things changed. In the 2020 assembly elections, the JDU alliance could get only 5 per cent Muslim votes. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, only 6 percent of Muslims voted for the JDU alliance, while 80 percent supported RJD.
The trend continued till the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, where only 12% of the Muslims in Bihar voted for the JDU alliance, which is a 50% decline from 2014. According to the 2011 census, the Muslim population of Bihar was 1,75,57,809 (1.75 crore), which is 17 percent of the total population of the state.
The bet of giving tickets to Muslims also fails
According to the Lok Sabha data of 2024, Bihar has 7,64,33,329 (7.64 crore) voters. If we pursue the data of 17% Muslim population of the 2011 census, then the estimated number of Muslim voters in Bihar will be around 1,29,93,667 (1.29 crore). The analysis of four Muslim -dominated districts of Bihar, which is spread in 24 assembly constituencies, shows that JDU won 7 seats here in the 2015 elections. However, when JDU was with NDA in 2020, she won just three seats. These districts have more than 30 percent Muslim population.
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Therefore, it clearly shows that as soon as JDU loses the support of Muslims associated with the NDA led by Modi. Even if we look at the performance of Muslim candidates, the same picture emerges. In 2015, JDU fielded 7 Muslim candidates and won 5 of them. However, despite fielding 11 Muslim candidates in 2020, no JDU candidate could win.
Votes with BJP coming with BJP
This clearly shows that JDU had to pay the price of his Muslim vote bank after an alliance with BJP after 2015. So much so that despite taking out more Muslim candidates, this bet did not work for Nitish Kumar’s party. Therefore, the principle that JDU will lose Muslim votes by supporting the Waqf Bill, is not very strong, because after 2015 the party has never got the trust of Muslims.