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“I am fifty years old and this is the first time I am elected to a post,” Dilip Kumar Thakur, who is from the Nai community and a Panchayat Samiti member from Chiraili village, told me. “Without reservation, this would not have been possible. Forget contesting, we could not even vote. With reservations, even lower castes now feel part of the system.”
In 2006, the Bihar cabinet approved 20 percent reservation for Extremely Backward Classes and 50 percent reservation for women in the state’s three-tier Panchayati Raj Institutions. It was one of Nitish Kumar’s first major decisions after he was elected as chief minister of the state for the first time in 2005. What began as an amendment to the Panchayati Raj Act, 1993, has, reshaped local power, social dignity and, crucially, the electoral calculus. Two decades on, the 2006 policy has become one of the most tangible political assets for Nitish Kumar in the high-stakes assembly contest of 2025. It has helped him build loyalty based on daily governance rather than charismatic outreach alone.
The amendment did not simply allot seats. It opened a ladder. Across Bihar, EBCs began to occupy roles, such as sarpanch—head of a panchayat, ward member, that had earlier been effectively monopolised by dominant castes. That ladder matters politically. In village after village, EBC leaders who once performed low-status labour were now committee members and office-holders. They distribute benefits, arbitrate disputes and sign off on small development projects. They have also been instrumental in knitting grassroots networks.
One such person was Upendra Kumar Singh’s mother, who became a ward councillor for the first time in 2007. “That was a revolutionary step for us, an extremely backward community,” Singh told me. An advocate, he is currently a councillor in the Gaya Municipal Corporation and belongs to the Chandravanshi community. Singh said that these communities were largely ignored and could not even reach their local MLAs and MPs. “When they started becoming mukhiyas, mayors, chairmen, and councillors, their voices began to be heard. These communities began to consider themselves a part of the government.”
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