Ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) nominated its low-profile party leader Hari Sahni, who comes from the Extremely Backward Class (EBC) community, as the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Bihar Legislative Council. Mr. Sahni, the first-time BJP MLC, was nominated on Sunday by Samrat Choudhary, who was appointed as the State party president in March 2023. Mr. Sahni was nominated to the Legislative Council by the BJP in 2022.
In a bid to woo the EBC, which constitutes about 30% of the State’s electorate and are considered to have a floating vote base, the BJP nominated Mr. Sahni, an influential caste leader from Darbhanga district, as the LoP in the State Legislative Council. Mr. Sahni comes from the Mallah (boatman) caste, a sub-group of the Nishad community of EBC which has a sizable presence in several Lok Sabha constituencies of north Bihar like Vaishali, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Madhubani and others.
In November 2005, when Nitish Kumar became the Chief Minister he carved out 113 castes as EBC from the most marginalised Other Backward Class (OBC) in Bihar which the former Chief Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Lalu Prasad commanded to remain in power. The influential EBCs include Bind, Mallah, Nishad, Chandravanshi, Sunar, Kumhar, Tatwa, Teli, Kahar, Kewat, Nonia and others who are considered Nitish Kumar’s party JD(U)’s most loyal vote bank.
