As the Waqf Amendment Bill 2025 sailed through both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) key ally in Bihar — the JD(U) — faced a setback. Five leaders of Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) resigned over the party’s support for the Centre’s Waqf Bill which was passed in Parliament early Friday.
JD(U) leaders who resigned were Nadeem Akhtar, Raju Nayyar, General Secretary of JD(U) Minority Department Tabrez Siddiqui Alig, JDU’s Minority State Secretary Mohammad Shahnawaz Malik and Mohammed Kasim Ansari.
This sparked speculations about whether Nitish Kumar and his party’s support for the Waqf Amendment Bill will impact his prospects in the upcoming Bihar elections. The 2025 Bihar Assembly election for all 243 constituencies will likely be held in October-November 2025.
Ahead of the state poll, “optics” are running high. The BJP’s move to launch the “Saugat-e-Modi” campaign, aiming to distribute special kits to underprivileged Muslims, is seen by the Opposition as a step to woo Muslim voters. Moreover, the participation of several politicians in iftar parties added to the buzz.
Amid such political moves, will the support for the Waqf Bill cost Nitish Kumar votes in Bihar?
Why Muslim votes don’t matter much for Nitish Kumar
Amitabh Tiwari, the Managing Partner Ascendia Strategies and Political Commentator, believes that “Nitish [Kumar] doesn’t have a lot of Muslim support left…so support to Waqf is a calculated risk which he has taken.”
However, the JDU has a “plus point”, Tiwari said. According to him, the JD(U) enjoys almost the same vote share in every election, but the “composition” party’s voter base changes, depending upon its alliance partners.
When the JD(U) contested elections alone in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the party won [around] 16 percent votes. “That time, Dalits/Mahadalits and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) formed the core voter base of the JD(U),” the political analyst said.
When the JD(U) contested in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), it’s vote share remained the same “almost”, but the “composition” of voter base changed. “There was an increase in Muslim and Yadav votes,” he said.
When the JD(U) allied with the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, Nitish Kumar’s party saw a decline in Muslim-Yadav votes but gained votes from the upper caste communities, Economically Backward Classes (EBC), OBCs, and Kurmis.
Tiwari further explained that the JD(U) has a fixed vote share of “around 12 per cent.” It adds a 4-5% Muslim-Yadav vote share in case of an alliance with the RJD and a 4-5% upper caste, OBC, and EBC vote share in case of an alliance with the BJP. This totals up the JD(U)’s vote share to 16-17 percent in both cases.
JD(U)’s ‘plus point’
The “plus point of the JD(U) is that, when the JD(U) allies with a party, it doesn’t harm its alliance partners” — meaning, the voter base of the RJD or the BJP is not impacted if the JD(U) joins them.
“The JD(U) doesn’t create any conflict in any alliance it joins as the votebase of each alliance partner remains intact [for example: Muslim-Yadav doesn’t reject RJD if JDU joins it],” Amitabh Tiwari said.
However, what happens in the 2025 elections remains a mystery. All eyes are on the 2025 Bihar polls, when the NDA (JDU and BJP) will take on the opposition RJD and the Congress in the race for the chief minister’s post.
In early 2024, Nitish Kumar severed ties with the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ and joined hands with the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. This was the fifth time Nitish Kumar switched sides, joining the BJP-led NDA in Bihar politics.
Bihar 2020 Elections
The JD(U) had contested the 2020 Bihar elections in allaince with the RJD and the Congress. Here’s how political parties fared in the 2020 Bihar elections:
| Political parties | Seats won | Vote share |
| RJD | 75 | 23.5 |
| BJP | 74 | 19.8 |
| JD(U) | 43 | 15.7 |
| INC | 19 | 9.6 |
| CPI(ML) (L) | 12 | 3.2 |
| IND | 1 | 8.8 |
| Others | 19 | 19.4 |
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