All the political parties are throwing all the power to make voters in their favor for the upcoming assembly elections to be held in Bihar. But the biggest question in this is that in whose account Muslim minority votes in the state will go. Muslims hold about 17 percent of the total population of Bihar.

According to a survey conducted by Nitish Kumar’s Grand Alliance government in 2022, the Muslim community is 17.7 percent in the population of Bihar, while in the 2011 census the figure was recorded at 16.9 percent.

Muslim population vote share more in 87 out of 243 assembly seats

Out of the total 243 assembly seats in Bihar, there are 87 seats where the Muslim population is more than 20 percent. At the same time, the Muslim population in 47 assembly seats is between 15 to 20 percent. The largest Muslim population in Bihar comes from four districts of Seemanchal region, including Araria, Katihar, Kishanganj and Purnia. Of these four districts, the maximum number of Muslim population lives in Kishanganj, whose figure is 68 percent. At the same time, after this, there are 44 percent in Katihar, 43 percent in Araria and 38 percent Muslim population in Purnia. There are total 24 assembly seats in these four districts.

Whose strongest on Muslim votes in Bihar politics,

Lalu Prasad Yadav’s party Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has been getting the largest part of the traditionally Muslim votes in the state of Bihar. On the other hand, the Chief Minister of the state Nitish Kumar has been getting about five (05) percent support from the total Muslim votes.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when Nitish Kumar’s JDU contested the election with the left parties, he got a total of 23.5 percent Muslim vote share. After this, JDU fought the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 and 2024 with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and secured 6 percent and 12 percent Muslim vote share respectively. Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and Hindustan Awam Morcha (HAM) were also part of the NDA in both these elections along with JDU and BJP.

Lalu and Nitish’s alliance impact on Muslim votes

If we talk that when Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD and CM Nitish Kumar’s JDU formed an alliance in the Bihar assembly elections in 2015, his alliance got 80 % of the Muslim vote share of the entire state. However, before the assembly elections in 2020, Nitish Kumar again changed his back and after that he got only 5 percent Muslim votes in the election. While the RJD alliance got 76 percent Muslim votes. Moreover, the grand alliance of RJD-Congress got 80 percent Muslim vote in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and 87 percent Muslim votes in the 2024 elections.

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