Bihar's OBC and Scheduled Caste communities have voted in favour of the ruling alliance, led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United, according to exit poll data released Tuesday evening.
An exit poll by Matrize said 51 per cent of OBC voters and 49 per cent of SC voters opted for Nitish Kumar and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.
Conversely, a staggering 78 per cent of Muslim voters chose the opposition Mahagathbandhan, which is led by the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Tejashwi Yadav, and includes the Congress.
A poll of exit polls released this evening – after close of voting in the second and final phase of the election – handed the ruling alliance a big win; the numbers said the NDA would win 147 of the state's 243 seats while the Mahagathbandhan would slump to 90, 20 fewer than last time.
READ | Big Win For NDA In Bihar, No Prashant Kishor Impact, Predict 9 Exit Polls
Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj, making a high-profile electoral debut, is expected to crash with only one seat, although some exit polls, like DV Research and P-Marq suggested he could win as many as four.
Caste was always going to be a key factor, particularly after the October 2023 survey confirmed over 60 per cent of the state's more than 13 crore population comes from a marginalised community and nearly 85 per cent belong to a backward or extremely backward class or a Scheduled Class or Tribe.
RECAP | Bihar Caste Survey: 27% Backward Classes, 36% Extremely Backward Classes
Specifically, an estimated 36 per cent was found to be from an extremely backward class, 27.1 per cent from a backward class, 19.7 per cent from a Scheduled Caste, and 1.7 per cent from a Scheduled Tribe. The general category, including so-called upper castes, were 15.5 per cent.
Data from a state-wide caste survey carried out before the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
An acknowledgment of those numbers was evident when each side was discussing candidates, with political analysts noting that ticket distribution was based on 'hard-nosed caste arithmetic'.
Pre-poll analysis of those candidates revealed that each side, more or less, matched the other in giving tickets to politicians from various castes and communities, although the Mahagathbandhan focused more on maximising reach among the Yadav community.
The alliance gave 67 tickets to those from party boss Lalu Yadav's community, while the NDA picked only 19 Yadav candidates. The opposite held true too; Nitish Kumar, who is from the Kurmi community, ensured 14 tickets to that section, while the opposition gave only seven.
