The Caste Equation In Bihar’s 2025 Assembly Elections

The 2025 Bihar assembly elections are being held against the backdrop of a major socio-political milestone: the 2022 caste survey report, released in October 2023. The 2022 Bihar Caste‑Based Survey mapped the caste and economic status of the state's 13.07 crore citizens. 

The survey revealed that among the 13+ crore citizens, the Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) made up 36.01 per cent of the population, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) about 27.12 per cent. This meant that, combined, the EBC and OBC vote bank accounts for over 63 per cent of the state’s electoral roll. Meanwhile, the Scheduled Castes (SCs) are approximately 19.65 per cent, and the Scheduled Tribes (STs) are a little under two per cent (1.68 per cent). Bihar’s General or forward castes comprise only 15.52 per cent of the voter rolls. 

These numbers underscore why caste has an enduring importance in Bihar’s political landscape. Given Bihar’s economic backwardness, with over four crore people migrating out of the state every year looking for work, political parties cannot afford to overlook caste and community dynamics.

Outlook’s November 11 issue, titled "Caste is the Biggest Political Party in Bihar," explores how caste plays multiple interconnected roles in seat-sharing and coalition-building in the land of the setting sun. 

The issue cover is the Cactus by Subodh Gupta, an installation that speaks to Bihar as a land reborn from its shadows. Once called the “wild west of India”, the state now stands resilient, much like the cactus that roots itself deep in the hardest soil. The cactus then is a mirror to the spirit of this state: enduring, protective, and quietly radiant.

In the issue, Tanvir Aeijaz looks at Dalit politics in Bihar. “Typically, Bihar is a case of ‘class-in-caste’ politics, wherein the political foundation is caste which carries the burden of its own class,” he notes. 

From Patna, Mohammad Ali writes that even as caste equations have changed in Bihar, parties have anchored the upper-caste core, and extended it to select OBC/EBC allies, and sprinkled representation elsewhere to appear inclusive.

Ashlin Mathew explores how, through the state’s Chief Minister Women’s Employment Scheme, JEEViKA and similar programmes, CM Nitish Kumar has turned welfare into a powerful electoral strategy, forcing his rivals to follow suit. “Bihar today finds itself at the sharp end of a high-stakes contest in which every party has turned to welfare as its central pitch,” she writes.

Meanwhile, Snigdhendu Bhattacharya wrote that, though largely unimplemented and mostly a buried programme, Bihar's land reforms are considered central to the state’s growth and still hold little weight in political campaigns. He asks: Is the subject Too Hot to Handle?

Umesh Kumar Ray profiles Prashant Kishor, calling him The Unreluctant Politician and The Reluctant Contestor.The former poll strategist of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is carving out a third corner in the Bihar contest by building a party,” he writes.

In the 2025 assembly elections, caste is set to play several roles. The parties have thus far used the caste survey to identify areas where EBC/OBCs are in the majority and which constituencies could swing based on the size of their caste populations. 

For the 2025 election in Bihar, the challenge before political parties is two-fold: put together a winning combination of caste blocs —especially EBC/OBC and allied SC/ST + forward-caste supportive voters —and convert that coalition into a credible narrative of welfare delivery. The survey provides the raw data; the party that will be successful will be the one to translate it into policy and political momentum.

Manoj Kumar Jha touches upon this equation in Elections = Ideology, where he writes that elections stripped of ideology signal the rise of “marketisation” of politics—parties become brands, candidates turn into commodities, and voters are treated as consumers to be enticed.

In The ‘Hum’ Factor, Indrajit Roy looks at Bihar’s collective motivation to act together in times of crisis and breakdown and demonstrates the ethical politics of hope as they navigate economic vulnerability, social conflict and political uncertainty. 

With the question of the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) finishing in Bihar just weeks ahead of the polling, Saiyyad Mohammad Nizamuddin Pasha asks: Is the SIR a new avatar of the NRC by another name, being pushed through under the garb of cleansing the electoral rolls?

In short, caste remains the foundation of Bihar’s electoral architecture, buttressed now by survey numbers. But the state's real test lies in whether identity-based mobilisation can evolve into governance-based legitimacy. If the winners simply rest on numbers and ignore delivery, especially for the numerically dominant EBC/OBC group, they risk a backlash. If instead they pair recognition with meaningful action, the 2025 election could mark a turning point: one in which caste politics retains its influence but begins to align more visibly with socio-economic change.