Umesh Kumar Ray 
Patna: After nearly three and half decades, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation has won two Lok Sabha seats in Bihar.
Two veteran leaders of the party, Sudama Prasad and Raja Ram Singh, emerged victorious in the Arrah and Karakat parliamentary seats, respectively, in southern Bihar.
The CPI (ML) Liberation is part of the INDIA Alliance and had contested on three seats – Karakat, Arrah and Nalanda.
In Arrah, the 56-year-old Prasad defeated two-time BJP MP, former bureaucrat and Union Minister R.K. Singh with a margin of 59,808 votes.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Sixty-six-year-old Raja Ram Singh, another seasoned leader of the CPI (ML) Liberation, secured 3,80,581 votes and defeated Bhojpuri singer and actor Pawan Singh, who contested as an independent, with a margin of 1,05,858 votes from Karakat.
Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) supremo and former Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha, who is part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was pushed to the third position in Karakat.
However, the CPI(ML) Liberation lost the Nalanda seat where the party had fielded MLA Sandeep Saurav against JDU leader and three-time MP Kaushlendra Kumar.
The party also won the Agiaon assembly seat, where by-elections were held along with the general elections. The seat was vacant due to conviction of party leader and MLA Manoj Manzil in a murder case.
The last time a CPI(ML) Liberation leader from Bihar entered the parliament was in 1989 when Rameshwar Prasad had won from Arrah Lok Sabha seat after winning the elections on a ticket of the Indian People’s Front, an open mass organization formed by CPI(ML) Liberation in early 90s to participate in elections.
In the 1991 general elections, the party had lost the Arrah seat. Since then, the party could not make it to the parliament from Bihar.
“Both the leaders have been associated with our farmer’s organisation and they will fight for the issues of poor and downtrodden class in the parliament as vigorously as they are fighting on roads,” Kunal, the state secretary of the CPI (ML) Liberation in Bihar told The Wire.
How Sudama Prasad won in Arrah
Arrah has been a stronghold of CPI(ML) Liberation since its inception in 70s, but the party’s vote bank got eroded with the changing political scenario in the state.
“First we lost our support base with the rise of Mandal politics in Bihar as our vote went to Lalu Prasad Yadav and other socialist leaders. Thereafter, upper caste landlords formed their own Army who tortured backward classes and Dalits for supporting our party. When Nitish Kumar became the Chief Minister in 2005, we lost our base further as he started various schemes to woo the extremely backward class (EBC) and Dalits,” says state secretary Kunal.
Kunal added that in the last few years the political situation changed and the poor and backward class started feeling cheated by the Modi government.
“Opposition parties came together to form a grand alliance and a new kind of politics started. We regained our support base. It took us so many years but we finally made it to parliament. Better late than never,” said Kunal.
According to party workers and local voters, two things worked in favour of the party in Arrah–the popularity of Sudama Prasad as a grounded leader and a deep sense of anger among the electorate against R.K. Singh.
“Sudama Prasad is a very popular leader. whenever any incident happens, he reaches the affected family. Wo sukh dukh mein logon ke paas khade rehte hain (He stands with people in their tough times),” Jagdish Chaurasia, a resident of Agiaon told The Wire.
On the other hand, there was a lot of anger among the public against R.K. Singh.
Lalan Singh Chandravanshi, a local resident of Ekwari village told The Wire, “R.K. Singh is honest but local people were very angry at him as he would seldom meet people.”
An aggressive campaign by the CPI (ML) Liberation worker also reached the interiors of the constituency, laying the foundation for Prasad’s win. The party workers raised the issues which exclusively impact the different caste groups.
“In around 100 villages in Arrah, there is a substantial population of the mallah community. Our workers went to them and spoke about specific issues related to fishing, which impacted the community. We did the same with Chandravanshi caste voters. We roped in women party workers to reach out to women voters,” says CPIML (Liberation) leader Kunal.
Political equations in the neighbouring Karakat constituency also influenced the outcome in Arrah.
“The RJD’s supporters voted aggressively for CPI (ML) Liberation candidate Prasad. In neighbouring seat Karakat, the independent candidate Pawan Singh is a Rajput, and Singh’s electoral battle with Kushwaha community leader Upendra Kushwaha in Karakat also went against R.K. Singh. Kushwaha voters in Arrah thought that Rajputs wanted to defeat Kushwaha in Karakat. This led to the community voting against R.K. Singh, also a Rajput by caste in Arrah,” a local CPI (ML) Liberation leader told The Wire.
Unlike other political parties, CPI(ML) Liberation conducted its campaign with public funding.
“We had printed lakhs of coupons of Rs.20 each. We would go door-to-door and appeal to people to donate just Rs. 20 and would give them coupons against the money. The coupon had our symbol,” the leader said.
In Karakat, Pawan Singh factor helped CPI (ML) Liberation
In Karakat, the CPI (ML) Liberation is not as strong as Arrah but a direct fight between independent candidate Pawan Singh and Upendra Kushwaha helped the party’s Raja Ram Singh in securing an easy victory.
Karakat seat has substantial votes of the Rajput, Kushwaha, Yadav and EBC communities. Bhojpuri singer and actor Pawan Singh, who belongs to Rajput caste was fighting as an independent after he refused the BJP’s ticket from Asansol Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal.
Singh received 2,74723 or 26.6 percent votes which includes a large section of Rajput voters. On the other hand, Upendra Kushwaha, who was fighting as an NDA candidate managed to get 2,53,876 votes, which local sources say includes Kushwaha and EBC votes.
Had Pawan Singh not contested from Karakat, his votes would have gone to NDA’s Upendra Kushwaha.
“We had formed a team of 12 workers who would knock on every door of the villages and distribute pamphlets as well as coupons. In the night, we would organise a meeting in the village,” says CPI (ML) Liberation leader Tarique Anwar, who campaigned for three weeks in the area under the Obra assembly segment the of Karakat parliamentary constituency.
“We also conveyed to people that Pawan Singh has been roped in by BJP to damage Upendra Kushwaha so people should not trust on BJP. This message also worked,” he added.
Read all of The Wire’s reporting on and analysis of the 2024 election results here.