Politics of Bihar

[5] For administrative purposes, Bihar state has nine divisions—Patna, Tirhut, Saran, Darbhanga, Kosi, Purnia, Bhagalpur, Munger, and Magadh Division—which between them are subdivided into thirty-eight districts.

However, Binodanand Jha was able to defeat Mahesh Prasad Sinha in race to premiership, as he was able to form a coalition of Rajputs, Brahmins and Kayasthas, which was also supported by Scheduled Castes and Muslims.

[7] As per one opinion, Sahay locked horns with Satyendra Narayan Sinha over his plan to give more representation to numerically preponderant Backward Castes like Ahir, Kurmi and Koeri in government and administration.

To consolidate his power, Sahay after taking over the leadership of Bihar Congress in 1963, wanted to create a coalition of the numerically strong backward castes.

The death of the central railway minister Lalit Narayan Mishra in a hand grenade attack in late 1960s brought an end to indigenous, work-oriented mass leaders.

The Indian National Congress (INC) controlled the state for next two decades; at this time, prominent leader Satyendra Narayan Singh left the INC following ideological differences and joined the Janata Party.

[3] After independence also, when India was falling into an autocratic rule during the Indira Gandhi regime, the main thrust to the movement to hold elections came from Bihar under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan.

Under the leadership of Sarkar, the Communist party fought the "total revolution" led by Jayprakash Narayan as the movement was anti-democratic and challenged the fabric of Indian democracy.

Under this social practice, the newly wed bride of a Dalit Kamia (labourer) was forced to spend her night before the marriage with the feudal lord.

[16] It is also believed that the frequent rapes of these women from the families of agricultural labourers were the cause behind the rise of naxalism in the Bhojpur region of Bihar, an area known for the prevalence of worst form of feudalism.

[17][18][16] With the passage of Bihar's land reform legislation, the benefit of which was shared by only a few upper-backward caste groups and the subsequent steps taken by the upper-castes to keep a substantial part of their holdings by manipulating the loopholes in the decree, elevated the naxal movements in the state.

The participation of middle peasantry or the upper backwards in the class war also remained evident making them involved in a two-front confrontation against both the Dalits, the supporters of naxalite movement as well as the upper-caste, who were adamant to keep the status-quo maintained.

in which due to caste affiliation and similar factors, the police personnel have attacked the villages inhabited by the lower-castes after the private armies of the upper-caste landlords perpetrated the massacres during the 1970s.

Other socialist leaning leaders, including Nitish Kumar, gradually left him and by 1995, Yadav was both chief minister of the state and president of his party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal.

He was criticised for neglecting development but a study conducted during his premiership among Musahars revealed though the construction of houses for them was not concluded at the required pace, they chose Prasad because he returned them their ijjat (honour) and allowed them to vote for the first time.

[30] During Yadav's tenure, a number of populist policies that directly impacted his backward-caste supporters, including the establishment of "Charvaha schools" for poor children; abolition of cess on toddy, and the rules protecting backward castes were enforced.

The frequent transfer of existing officers, who were at the higher echelon of bureaucracy, was an important feature of Yadav's and Rabri Devi's administration, which led to the collapse of entire system.

When corruption charges were laid against him, he resigned as chief minister and appointed his wife Rabri Devi, in his place, allowing himself to rule by proxy, and the administration quickly deteriorated.

In the Dalelchak-bhagora massacre, during Bindeshwari Dubey's government, 42 Rajputs were killed by the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC), one of Yadav caste's lynching parties.

It was also reported through a senior police officer, which could be true for some parts of Bihar like Jehanabad, that a practice of making the husband of the Dalit woman lay below the cot where the landlord would rape her wife keeping his rifle besides her, prevailed.

[45] As public disaffection intensified, the RJD was voted out of power and Yadav lost an election to a coalition headed by his former ally Nitish Kumar.

[50] In the subsequent years, Kumar remained critical to the Yadav's politics and even accused his rule as Jungleraj (the era of misgovernance) while reminding his electorate of the same.

[53] Earlier, Kumar had been contesting the elections upon the promises of development which was evident from the manifesto of his party but the new alliance brought the conundrum of confronting BJP's Hindutva politics.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had been securing the victories on the basis of its majoritarian ideology as well as "Modi factor" amidst communally charged political atmosphere.

One of the evident strategies of BJP to counter Mandal gains was the restructuring of quota rules to the benefit of upper castes which includes the lateral entry and privatisation as Jaffrelot sums up.

Based on the input of the political thinkers from Bihar, the report called the Yadav-Kumar alliance, the coalition of middle castes who were traditionally involved in agricultural and allied activities in pre-independence period.

The victory came with the largest ever increase in the number of the OBC candidates primarily from the Yadav, Kurmi and the Koeri caste; who were the core voters of the alliance.

It was also reported that due to these three castes voting together after a long time since Kumar defected from Yadav's Janata Dal in the 1990s, the upper-caste representation reached its lowest at 23.9% in the Bihar assembly.

In the aftermath of government formation, the JD (U) took energetic steps to recover its lost vote base by engulfing the leaders from smaller parties like Bahujan Samaj Party and the organisational changes were also made by appointing Ramchandra Prasad Singh and Umesh Kushwaha as its National and state president, in a bid to strengthen the Luv-Kush alliance (defined as the coalition of Kurmi and Kushwaha caste).

[73] In 2024, Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Bihar, has once again switched allegiances, a 5th U-turn, leaving the Mahagathbandhan opposition alliance to rejoin the BJP-led NDA coalition.