Chirag Paswan may contest from a general seat. Tough task, but it helps to be a star candidate
At a rally in Bihar's Arrah on Sunday, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief and Union Minister Chirag Paswan confirmed his intention to contest the forthcoming Assembly polls. The Dalit leader has also indicated that he wants to contest from an unreserved Assembly seat, which is being seen as a move to expand his and his party's reach beyond the Scheduled Castes.
Asked if this also indicated his chief ministerial ambitions, Paswan, who is currently a Union minister, said: 'My contest will only ensure a better strike rate for my party, which would help the NDA.'
If he contests from a general seat, it would be a first for Paswan. He has also never contested an Assembly election earlier, having won twice earlier from the Jamui Lok Sabha seat (2014 and 2019), and once from Hajipur (2024).
Poll data since 2004, when the Election Commission (EC) began specifying the caste or tribal status of each candidate, shows, though, that while Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates frequently contest from general seats, their chances of victory are small. In Bihar, for example, in the past 20 years since the EC started maintaining the data, SC/ST candidates have won only five times from a general seat, and never in a Lok Sabha poll.
Notably, the undivided LJP, which has always fielded a high number of SC/ST candidates from general seats, has never seen any of them win.
Overall, 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%).
Since 2004, the highest number of SC/ST winners in general seats were seen in last year's Lok Sabha elections, at 22 (two of them women) – though, their number has been rising, from 15 in 2004, to eight in 2009, seven in 2014, and 10 in 2019.
2024 also saw the highest proportion of SC and ST candidates in general seats (19.4% of total). In 2019, such candidates accounted for 16.2% of all contestants. The lowest share of these candidates since 2004 was in 2009, at 12.8%.
Tribal candidates far outnumbered SCs when it comes to winning from a general seat. Among the 62 overall who have won since 2004 from general seats in Lok Sabha polls, 47 have been STs and 15 SCs. This is despite SC candidates in general seats being more than six times STs (5,063 compared to 890).
Among the states, Maharashtra accounts for 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 highest number of SC or ST winners in general seats are from Arunachal at 10, followed by Assam at seven, and Ladakh, Nagaland and West Bengal at five each. No other states have seen more than five such winners. The Northeast is overrepresented here given the low number of seats in the region where most seats are already reserved for STs.
At 55, Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara has seen the most number of SC/ST candidates contesting from a general seat, followed by Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur and Maharashtra's Nagpur at 50 each, and Telangana's Khammam and Nizamabad at 45 each.
If only 62 SC/ST candidates have won from general seats since 2004, just 65 more have placed second and 177 third. The vast majority – 5,649 of 5,953 – came in fourth or lower.
Just 164 SC/ST candidates have secured more than 10% votes when contesting from general seats, and only 147 others have been able to save their deposits by winning at least one-sixth of the total votes. Their presence in the race on most occasions did not make a difference, with just 200 SC/ST candidates standing in general seats since 2004 securing more votes than the margin of the winner, and presumably influencing the result.
Most of the SC/ST candidates contesting from general seats in Lok Sabha elections are Independents, comprising 3,284 of the total 5,953 since 2004. Of them, only three have won – all from Ladakh.
In comparison, the two biggest parties nationally, the BJP and Congress, account for just 54 and 52 such candidates, respectively. Of the BJP's 54, nearly half or 28, won from general seats, with the Congress tally at 15.
The Mayawati-led BSP, not surprisingly, far outstrips other parties, with 600 such candidates fielded in general seats. The Dalit-oriented party, though based in Uttar Pradesh, contests Lok Sabha polls across the country.
The most notable SC/ST winners from general seats since 2004 include Union ministers Kiren Rijiju and Sarbananda Sonowal, both from the Northeast. Rijiju, a member of the Nyishi tribe, has won the Arunachal West Lok Sabha seat four of the last five times, while Sonowal, also a tribal leader and former Assam CM, has won his seat thrice from Lakhimpur and Dibrugarh.
BJP MP and tribal leader Mansukhbhai Vasava from Gujarat's Bharuch shares the record with Rijiju on ST candidates who have won from general seats the most times, at four. Like Sonowal, Arunachal BJP president and ST leader Tapir Gao won from Arunachal East and Congress Dalit Punjab leader Sher Singh Ghubaya won from Firozpur thrice each.
Most recently, in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Samajwadi Party Dalit leader Awadesh Prasad defeated the BJP in Faizabad, a general seat that is home to Ayodhya's Ram Temple.
In the Assembly elections held since 2004 (counting the 2025 Delhi Assembly polls), 20,644 SC/ST candidates have contested from general seats, or 11% of total, lower than their proportion in the Lok Sabha polls.
Like the Lok Sabha polls, SC candidates outnumber STs in such seats by more than five times (17,330 SCs to 3,314 STs). And like the Lok Sabha polls, they figure far behind among winners – of the 246 such winners till date, 64 have been SCs and 182 STs.
The year 2023, when there were nine Assembly elections, saw the highest number of such candidates at 1,792. It is followed by the years 2014 and 2024 (1,666 and 1,622, respectively), when there were Lok Sabha polls as well as eight state elections each.
Like in the case of Lok Sabha elections, Maharashtra has seen the most number of SC/ST candidates contesting from general seats, at 3,058. UP, with the largest Assembly in the country, comes second at 1,811, followed by Tamil Nadu at 1,687, Andhra Pradesh (which included Telangana until 2014) at 1,675, and Karnataka at 1,410.
However, in terms of winners, none of these states count among the top. Assam has seen the most number of SC/ST candidates emerge victorious from general seats at 30, followed by Rajasthan at 26, West Bengal at 23, Sikkim at 22, and J&K at 20 since 2004.
At 121 candidates, a large concentration of such winners is, hence, in Northeastern and other hill states.
Apart from the 246 winning SC/ST candidates from general seats, just 297 placed second and 858 placed third. The remaining 19,243 candidates (93% of total) finished fourth or lower.
Only 822 candidates even secured a vote share greater than 10%, with only 622 others managing to save their deposits.
As far as the impact on the outcome goes, there have been 1,031 SC/ST candidates in general seats who secured more votes than the winners' margins. Of these, 732 were SCs and 299 were STs.
Like at the Lok Sabha level, in Assembly polls too, Independents comprise the biggest chunk (nearly half, at 9,789) of the SC/ST candidates who have contested from general seats since 2004.
The BSP again tops among parties, with 3,210 such candidates, with the BJP (295) and Congress (222) trailing far behind. In fact, at 239 SC/ST candidates in general seats since 2004, the LJP, including Paswan's LJP (RV) now, outranks Congress, despite being a Bihar-based party.
The other parties to have fielded more than 100 such candidates in the last two decades include the Republican Party of India (Athawale) – also a Dalit-focused party like the LJP – at 212; the Gondwana Gantantra Party at 206; the SP at 149; the CPI(ML)(L) at 133; the CPI(M) at 109; and the Aam Aadmi Party at 100.
However, the winners' list of such candidates is dominated by national parties. The BJP again has the most SC/ST winners in general seats at 59, followed by the Congress at 55, Independents at 18, the Trinamool Congress and CPI(M) at 10 each, the Biju Janata Dal at nine, the National Conference at eight, and the BSP at six.
Among the most prominent such winners has been Babulal Marandi, Jharkhand's first CM and one of the BJP's tallest tribal leaders, who won the unreserved Dharwar Assembly seat in 2019 and 2024. Two-time Sikkim CM Prem Singh Tamang, an ST leader of NDA member Sikkim Krantikari Morcha, won unreserved seats in 2004, 2009, and 2014.
Ramesh Jarkiholi, another tribal leader and former Karnataka minister, won the unreserved Gokak seat for the Congress in 2018 and the BJP in 2023. Praniti Shinde, daughter of former Union minister Sushilkumar Shinde, won Maharashtra's Solapur City Central seat in 2009 and 2014 as an SC candidate. Nisith Pramanik, an SC leader and former Union minister, won the unreserved Dinhata seat in West Bengal in 2021 before becoming an MP.
With four victories from the unreserved Gossaigaon seat in Assam (2006 to 2021), Bodoland Peoples' Front leader Majendra Narzary holds the record for SC/ST candidates in Assembly elections. Meghalaya's Sanbor Shullai matches him, having won unreserved seats twice with the NCP, in 2008 and 2013, and twice with the BJP, in 2018 and 2023.
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