Muslims win only 10 out of 243 seats in Bihar

Muslim candidates have won only 10 out of 243 seats in the assembly elections in the neighboring state of West Bengal, India. This has reduced the number of Muslim MLAs by almost half compared to the last time. In all, this is the lowest number of Muslim candidates in Bihar in the eight elections held since 1990.

This information has come to light in a report analyzing the election results by the Indian media outlet Indian Express. According to the report, out of a total of 243 seats in the Bihar assembly, only 10 candidates from different districts of the state won in the recently concluded elections. Out of these 10, 5 are not candidates from any Bihar-based political party; they are candidates of the Telangana-based political party Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM).

On the other hand, one of the other 5 Muslim candidates who won the assembly elections is from the BJP-led NDA alliance. In addition, two of the remaining four were candidates from the Congress and two from the Tejashwi Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

In the last 2020 Bihar assembly elections, 19 Muslim candidates won. Before that, 24 Muslim candidates were elected as MLAs in the 2015 elections.

According to Indian political and election analysts, this is the lowest number of Muslim MLAs elected in Bihar in the last 7 decades.

A census conducted in Bihar in 2022-23 shows that the number of Muslims in this eastern Indian state is 137 million. That is, as a percentage, 17.7 percent of the total population of Bihar is Muslim. However, the state's Muslim population is not proportionally represented in the assembly. While in 2015 and 2020, the proportional representation of Muslims in the Bihar assembly was 9.87 and 7.8 percent respectively, this rate has fallen below 5 percent in this assembly election.