- EBCs form 36% of Bihar's population and are key swing voters in elections
- Nitish Kumar secured EBC support with targeted welfare and political inclusion
- EBC voting shifted between JD(U)-BJP, Mahagathbandhan, and NDA from 2010 to 2020
In the politics of Bihar, caste is both compass and trap: it orients every voter, every party, every pledge, even as it binds them to inherited hierarchies. Yet within this intricate lattice, the Extremely Backward Castes - the EBCs, some 36 per cent of the state's population - have long been the restless element.
In the local dialect of Mithilanchal, they are either called Panchforna or, at times Panchpaniya. They are not the kings of the game, like the Yadavs, nor the permanent foot-soldiers, like the Dalits. They are the swing vote, the hinge upon which power quietly turns.
Nitish Kumar, EBC's Patron Saint
For two decades, Nitish Kumar fashioned himself as their patron saint. His "Ati Pichhda" schemes, his bicycles for schoolgirls, his one-third quota in panchayats - these were not merely welfare. They were carefully composed overtures to the Nonia, the Teli, the Mallah, the Dhanuk, the Amatya - castes so small their names are scarcely registered in the Census. By dividing and dignifying them, Nitish built the ballast for his long voyage of two decades in power.
The numbers bear this out. In the 2010 assembly election, Lokniti-CSDS data show that a majority of EBCs-close to 45-50 per cent voted for the JD(U)-BJP alliance, delivering Nitish a landslide. By 2015, when Nitish joined hands with Lalu Prasad Yadav in the Mahagathbandhan, around 55 per cent of EBCs backed the alliance, helping it sweep the state. But in 2020, the tide had turned again: a plurality of EBCs (roughly 45per cent) voted for the NDA, while the RJD-led MGB managed only about a third. The EBCs, in other words, have shifted allegiance in every election of the past decade. They have been in pollsters' language, the floating voters, the swing factor in Bihar politics.
Voyages, like health, falter with time. Nitish today, shuffling between allies and adversaries, appears less a helmsman than a drifting figure, his waning energy mirrored by the erosion of his once-firm social base. And it is precisely here, in the cracks of his legacy, that the EBCs have begun to float again. Their loyalty is no longer automatic. Their votes, once Nitish's insurance policy, are once more up for grabs.
Rahul Gandhi's EBC Push
Rahul Gandhi, in his latest avatar, has scented this drift. His call for a caste census, his rhetorical embrace of the "36 per cent" is not merely moral positioning. It is a direct attempt to prise open Nitish's old tent, to beckon away its scattered occupants. Even during the important Congress Working Committee meeting in Patna's Sadaqat Ashram, Rahul Gandhi, along with his Mahagathbandhan partners, is focusing on various initiatives for the EBCs. In the Congress's telling, the EBCs are not a residue but a reservoir: the decisive bloc that could turn an election. To them, he offers recognition, representation, even a new vocabulary in which they are not "extremely backward" but centrally relevant.
Karpoori Formula vs Mandal Formula
The irony is sharp. Karpoori Thakur's reservation formula carved space for them against the dominance of the upper castes. Lalu Prasad Yadav's Mandal politics subsumed them beneath the Yadav arch. Nitish Kumar pulled them into the daylight of policy. And now, as Nitish recedes, Rahul Gandhi proposes to make them the keystone of a national opposition. Each generation, it seems, finds in the EBCs the promise of a new arithmetic, only to leave them searching again for permanence.
For EBCs, Strength Lies In Floating
Perhaps that is the fate of those without a single name or a single leader: to float, to be wooed, to be disappointed. Yet in their floating lies their strength. In 2010, they crowned Nitish; in 2015, they crowned Lalu and Nitish together; in 2020, they leaned back to the NDA. They can withhold as well as confer, punish as well as bless. In an era when old allegiances have frayed and Bihar feels more like a mosaic than a hierarchy, it is the smallest fragments that may carry the largest consequence.
So the story of Bihar politics, like the rivers that cut through its plains, may be written by those who cannot yet be mapped on a single line. The EBCs, once ignored, now find themselves at the centre of every strategist's map. They drift, yes, but in that drifting, they may determine who anchors power in Patna, and who, like Nitish Kumar in his twilight, is left untethered.
Source: Lokniti-CSDS post-poll surveys, Bihar Assembly Elections (2010, 2015, 2020)
