Luv-Kush equation

The Luv-Kush equation is a political term used in the context of the politics of Bihar, to denote the alliance of the agricultural Kurmi and the Koeri caste, which was assumed to be approximately 15% of the state's population (7% approximately in the Bihar caste-based survey 2022)[1] The alliance of these two caste groups has remained the support base of Nitish Kumar,[2] as against the MY equation[3] of Lalu Prasad Yadav, which constitutes Muslims and the Yadavs.

The call for unity between the two castes by Kumar in the 1990s gave rise to the new social alliance and a new term in the political lexicon of Bihar.

The Koeris claim descent from the mythological Hindu deity Kusha, a son of Rama, an incarnation of lord Vishnu.

According to political theorists of Bihar, the Yadav, though numerically superior, fell behind the Kushwaha (Koeri) and the Kurmis in terms of education and in other spheres of life.

Nitish Kumar is said to have utilised this dissension in the early 1990s to break the hold of Lalu Prasad Yadav over a section of the Backward Castes.

[11] After Lalu Yadav had assumed the premiership of the Bihar as a leader of the Janata Dal in 1990, he took several bold steps, which were welcomed by the downtrodden communities.

The dominance of Yadav's people from the cadres to the higher party positions at the cost of other aspirational backward castes created dissension in their ranks.

The growing face-offs led to a split in the Janata Dal in 1994, when Nitish Kumar and George Fernandes formed the Samata Party, which was supported by the other leaders of the Koeri and the Kurmi castes.

The only impact of the Nitish Kumar factor was the loss of some votes of the Koeri-Kurmi community, while the lower caste supported the Janta Dal firmly.

Some leaders who were amongst the coordinators of this event also revealed later that the Bhumihars, a caste which opposed Lalu Prasad during his political ascendency, were supporting the rally implicitly.

The organisers used the posters of national level leaders like Uma Bharti and Sharad Pawar, but the day preceding the organization of the main event, Nitish Kumar issued a statement against it and refused to attend.

In 1993, at a memorial ceremony for Karpoori Thakur, Nitish warned Yadav against these policies which undermined the interests of non-Yadav OBCs, but no solution was found.

Sankarshan Thakur, who wrote the biography of Nitish Kumar, wrote: At a memorial function on Karpoori Thakur’s anniversary in 1993, he cautioned the Laloo government against ignoring the Bihar-specific amendments the late leader had proposed to the Mandal formula—the lesser privileged backward communities, or the extremely backward communities (EBCs) as they came to be known, must have a quota within the reservation quota, else they would continue to languish.

[18] Krishna realised the only way to pose a political challenge to Yadav was by harnessing the votes of the disgruntled Kurmi community.

After a long discussion, Krishna got Kumar's consent, and the decision was made to speak directly against the Janata Dal and Lalu Prasad Yadav.

After defending Yadav for some time, Kumar talked about the over-representation of some castes at the cost of others and put forward his anti-government feelings to the mob.

The elections of 2005 also witnessed the highest ever representation among the winning candidates of the Koeri and Kurmi castes, who constituted the core of the Janata Dal (United) electorate.

Though, Kushwaha had remained an old partner of Nitish and had been with him from the time of Jayaprakash Narayan, only to make his electoral debut in 2000, in 2013, he caused a split in JD(U) again and floated his Rashtriya Lok Samata Party.

[25] Considering the hold of Upendra Kushwaha on the Koeri caste, the Bharatiya Janata Party allied with him for the 2014 General elections to the Lok Sabha.

The cause of this fissure was the poor performance of the JD(U) in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and the ambitions of Nitish Kumar, who wanted to be the NDA's candidate for prime minister.

One noticeable impact of the RJD-JD(U) alliance was the massive increase in the number of Koeri, Kurmi and Yadav legislators in the state at the cost of the upper castes, who were reduced to their lowest share in the assembly for the first time.

[36] Upendra Kushwaha, who had ambitions for the post of chief minister, found it would be difficult to obtain after the return of Nitish Kumar into the NDA.

He met Lalu Yadav, who was undergoing treatment in the hospital, and the media revealed several skirmishes in the NDA over the issue of seat sharing.

After internal discussions, he decided not to join either the Mahagathbandhan or the National Democratic Alliance, but chose to run for the 2020 Bihar Legislative Assembly elections alone in an alliance with a few minor players like All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, considered to have the support of radical Muslims and the Bahujan Samaj Party, a significant player in Uttar Pradesh.

The alliance chose Upendra Kushwaha as their chief ministerial candidate and was to put up firm resistance to both the NDA and Mahagathbandhan blocs.

[41] Janata Dal (United), which relies upon same social coalition, took steps to consolidate its "Luv-Kush equation", by giving a significant number of tickets to the Koeri and Kurmi castes.

In order to strengthen its old vote base, some arrangements were done in the party, giving more representation to the members of Koeri and Kurmi caste.

Besides, the party also brought a powerful "Extremely Backward Caste" called Dhanuk in the socio-political coalition of the Luv-Kush equation.

[49][50] In February 2023, a political crisis emerged in the ruling Janata Dal (United), between the Parliamentary Board president Upendra Kushwaha and the other leaders.

Later, in February 2023, Kushwaha left the JDU and announced the formation of a new political party called Rashtriya Lok Janata Dal.