- By Abhishek Sheoran
- Tue, 03 Oct 2023 09:23 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
The much-awaited result of Bihar’s caste census was out on Monday with a plethora of reactions from across the political spectrum. The outcome of the survey revealed that OBCs and EBCs constitute a whopping 63 per cent of Bihar’s total population. As many politicians talk about rights based on the population after the report of the census was out, it becomes important to understand how a caste-driven state like Bihar chose its rulers in 76 years of its political history.
Notably, the state was ruled by people belonging to the upper caste for over 37 years. At the very onset, when caste discrimination was rampant and people belonging to the lower caste remained downtrodden, Bihar’s first assembly had an upper caste CM. Shri Krishna Singh was appointed as Bihar CM in 1946, even prior to the state’s first assembly. He remained at the top post till 1950 and was re-elected when the first assembly came into force.
The rule of backwards came in the state in 1968 when Satish Prasad Singh became the state’s CM. However, his government lasted only 5 days. This was the first occasion when a non-Congress government was formed in the state and Satish was reportedly given the charge to pave the way for BP Mandal, yet another backward. The state was ruled by people belonging to the backward class for over 35 years.
The state got Scheduled Caste’s representation three times but only for 1 year and 327 days. Bihar saw only one minority community CM Abdul Gafoor, who served for 1 year and 283 days.
Among backwards, OBC got the maximum chunk with five CMs and 35 years of rule. Nitish Kumar, the present CM of Bihar, has served at the top post for over 17 years. He belongs to the OBC. Rabri Devi, another OBC leader ruled Bihar for 7 years and 190 days. Lalu Yadav was CM of Bihar for 7 years and 130 days.
Community’s Daroga Rai remained CM for 310 days, Satish Prasad Singh for 5 days, BP Mandal for 51 days also served in the same capacity. Karpoori Thakur, belonging to the Nai (barber) community is listed as an Extremely Backward Class (EBC) among the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), was Bihar CM.
After a 17-year and 52-day-long inning of Bihar’s first CM Shri Krishna Singh, belonging to the upper caste, Jagannath Mishra ruled the state for 5 years and 180 days.
The upper caste’s KB Sahai for 3 years and 154 days, Binodanand Jha for 2 years and 226 days, Chandrashekhar Singh for 1 year and 210 days, Kedar Pandey for 1 year and 105 days,
Bhagwat Jha Azad for 1 year and 24 days, Mahamaya Prasad Singh for 329 days, Satyendra Narayan Sinha for 270 days, Harihar Singh for 117 days, and Deep Narayan Singh for 17 days served as Bihar CMs.
From the SC community, three persons served as Bihar CM but none of them could complete one year in power. Ramsundar Das served as the state’s CM for 302 days, Jitan Ram Manjhi for 278 days, and Bhola Paswan Shastri for 112 days.