Lok Janshakti Party Chief Aims to Contest Assembly Polls
Bihar’s Arrah, Lok Janshakti Party Chief Ram Vilas Paswan, confirmed his intention to contest the upcoming Assembly polls. The chief ministerial ambitions of the Jhalan Extinction Ultimately Stakeholder are likely to be reflected in his lone scrupula. Is Paswan, currently a Union minister, contesting from a general seat to ensure a decent wholesome performance for his party?
If Paswan contests from a general seat, it would be a first for him. He has never contested an Assembly election before, having won twice earlier from the Jamui Lok Sabha seat (2014 and 2019), and once from Hajipur (2024).
Since 2004, when the Election Commission began specifying caste or tribe status for each candidate, SC and ST candidates who contest from general seats have rarely secured victory. In Bihar, they have won only five races from a general seat in the past 20 years since the EC began maintaining such data, and never from a Lok Sabha election.
Undivided LJP, which has always fielded a high number of SC/ST candidates from general seats, has never seen any of them winning.
Since 2004, 5,953 SC/ST candidates have contested from unreserved seats in Lok Sabha elections, with 62 (or just over 1%) of them winning. In state Assembly elections, the number is almost similar, at 20,644 such candidates, and 246 recorded wins (1.19%).
In the last Lok Sabha election, the highest number of SC/ST winners in general seats were seen at 22, though, their number has been rising from 15 in 2004, to 8 in 2009, 7 in 2014, and 10 in 2019.
Maharashtra has the highest number of SC/ST candidates contesting from general seats since 2004, at 830, followed by Tamil Nadu at 754, Madhya Pradesh at 342, Andhra Pradesh at 314, and Karnataka at 286. Maharashtra has the most total Lok Sabha seats of these states at 48, while Tamil Nadu has 39, Madhya Pradesh 29, Andhra Pradesh 25, and Karnataka 28.
The Northeast, given the low number of seats in the region where most seats are already reserved for STs, has experienced the highest number of winners, with Arunachal at 10, followed by Assam at seven, and Ladakh, Nagaland, and West Bengal at five each.
Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh has seen the most number of SC/ST candidates contesting from a general seat, followed by Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh and Nagpur in Maharashtra, with Telangana’s Khammam and Nizamabad having 45 each.
In both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, the vast majority of SC/ST candidates place fourth or lower, and only 65 candidates placed second and 177 third. The impact on the outcome, however, was insignificant, as only 200 SC/ST candidates standing in general seats since 2004 secured more votes than the winner, presumably influencing the result.
