A look at the Bihar Assembly poll results reflects the failure of the Mahagathbandhan parties to expand beyond what is considered their traditional voter bases. While the RJD suffered losses by sizeable margins in seats where it fielded EBC and non-Yadav OBC candidates, the Congress’s bet on upper-caste candidates failed to yield any reward.

The RJD’s EBC candidates performed the worst, with the highest average margin of defeat at 27,506 votes. EBCs are traditional voters of JD(U) president and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar .

While the RJD contested 143 seats and won 25, the Congress contested 61 seats and won six.

In the RJD’s list of 143 candidates, 77, or almost 54%, were OBCs, including 50 Yadavs and 27 from other OBC groups. The party had 15 upper-caste candidates and 12 EBCs. The remain

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