Joining NDA cost JDU Muslim votes, Waqf bill support won’t do any damage

Months ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections, jitters have hit the JD(U) after five Muslim leaders quit the Nitish Kumar-led party over its support for the Waqf Amendment Bill.

In both Houses of Parliament, the JD(U) extended its support for the Waqf bill, which expands government oversight on the management of properties donated by Muslims.

The anxiety among JD(U) leaders is largely based on fears of losing out on the Muslim vote bank ahead of the Bihar elections. While this fear may prima facie be valid, data projects a different picture.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha election and 2015 Assembly polls, when Nitish was in the anti-Modi camp, he had a significant following among Muslim voters.

In 2014, when JD(U) contested in alliance with the Left, it gained 23.5% of the Muslim votes, as per the CSDS Lokniti survey. In the 2015 Assembly polls, when Nitish was a part of the Mahagathbandhan, the alliance bagged 80% of the Muslim votes, as per projections in reports.

However, things changed when he joined the NDA alliance led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after 2015.

In the 2020 Assembly polls, the JD(U) alliance could gather only 5% of Muslim votes. The 2019 Lok Sabha polls saw just 6% of the Muslims voting for the JD(U) alliance against 80% for the RJD.

This trend more or less continued into the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, where just 12% of the Muslims in Bihar voted for the JD(U) alliance – a fall of 50 percentage points from the situation in 2014.

As per the 2011 census, Bihar’s Muslim population was recorded at 1,75,57,809 (1.75 crore), making up 17% of the state’s total population.

As per the 2024 Lok Sabha data, Bihar has 7,64,33,329 (7.64 crore) registered electors. If we extrapolate the 2011 census data of Muslims, which stands at 17% of the total population, the estimated number of Muslim voters in Bihar would be around 1,29,93,667 (1.29 crore).

An analysis of four Muslim-dominated districts in Bihar, spread across 24 Assembly constituencies, shows JD(U) won 7 seats in the 2015 polls. However, in 2020, when JD(U) was with the NDA, it won only three. Muslims constitute 30% of the population in these districts.

Thus, it clearly shows that the JD(U) fell out of favour of Muslims the moment it joined hands with the Modi-led NDA.

A similar picture emerges if we look at the performance of JD(U) Muslim candidates. In 2015, JD(U) fielded 7 Muslim candidates and 5 of them won. However, in 2020, despite fielding 11 Muslim candidates, none from the JD(U) emerged victorious.

This clearly shows that allying with the BJP post 2015 has cost the JD(U) its Muslim votebank. So much so that even fielding a higher number of Muslims didn’t work for Nitish Kumar’s party.

Thus, this theory of JD(U) losing out on Muslim votes due to its backing of the Waqf bill does not hold much water as the party, post 2015, never really enjoyed the confidence of Muslims.