Patna: In his third visit to Bihar within 13 days on Tuesday (April 16), Prime Minister Narendra Modi exhorted the people to vote against “jungle raaj” – a tag the Bharatiya Janata Party had given to what it had coined the “Lalu-Rabri regime” (1990-2005) – and appealed to them to keep ‘Rama’ in their hearts and minds while casting their votes.
Another phrase that the prime minister emphasised upon on the last day of campaigning in the state for the first phase (Gaya, Aurangabad, Nawada and Jamui constituencies will vote on April 19) was “bhrastachar (corruption)”. He used “jungle raaj and bhrastachar” in the same breath.
In 2019, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) nominees had bagged all these four seats, three of them with an impressive margin. It’s hard to predict the results of the 2024 polls at this stage, but the issues and equations in these four seats in south Bihar have undergone a sea-change, five years down the line.
Former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, who was the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-supported Mahagathbandhan candidate, had lost to Vijay Kumar Manjhi of the BJP by 1,52,426 votes in Gaya in 2019. This time, Manjhi has entered the fray as the NDA’s nominee against Kumar Sarvajit of the RJD. Sarvajit, who has been an MLA from Bodhgaya (a segment of the Gaya Lok Sabha seat) for two consecutive terms, belongs to the Dalit Paswan caste, largely believed to be supporters of Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Now, the question arises if the Paswans of Gaya will listen to Chirag and vote for Manjhi, a Musahar, over a candidate from their own caste, or respond to Modi’s appeal to vote in the name of Rama. The locals say that Sarvajit is quite popular among his caste-men and might give a tough fight to Manjhi, who is banking entirely on “Modi magic”, which, of course, works on the business class in this predominantly urban constituency.
The dice appears to be loaded against the BJP’s Sushil Kumar Singh – an upper-caste Rajput who is contesting to retain the Rajput stronghold of Aurangabad for the third term. The seat, which was once known as a bastion of freedom fighter Anugrah Narayan Sinha, his son and former chief Satendra Narayan Sinha and grandson Nikhil Kumar, has never elected a non-Rajput ever since 1952.
Sushil Singh had won this seat in 2019 by 72,607 votes against the RJD’s Upendra Prasad – a Dangi, sub-caste of Koiri – in 2019. As a part of its strategy to unite other backward classes (OBCs) and Muslims who, too, are quite sizeable in Aurangabad, the RJD has fielded Abhay Kushwaha – a Koiri and quite popular leader from his larger Kushawaha community. There is a straight contest between Sushil and Abhay on this seat, with Sushil again banking on Modi magic and Abhay on the unity of OBCs and Muslims.
The BJP has fielded a new face, Vivek Thakur, son of former party MP C.P. Thakur, in Nawada against the RJD’s Shravan Kushwaha. The RJD, as a part of its experiment to bring the Koiri-Kushwaha into its fold, has fielded young Shravan, a local face. But it faces a rebellion from the Yadavs, with the Bahujan Samaj Party fielding Vinod Yadav, an RJD rebel, making the Nawada battle a triangular one. In no way can Vinod win this seat, but he might end up cutting into the Yadav votes to the advantage of the BJP nominee.
There is drastic change in Jamui. Chirag Paswan had bagged this seat in 2019 with an emphatic margin of 2,41,09 votes. Be it for fear of losing it or his desire to represent his father, Chirag has opted for Ram Vilas Paswan’s bastion Hajipur this time. His party has fielded his brother-in-law, Ashish Bharti, from Jamui. The RJD has fielded a local woman Dalit right activist Archana Ravidas, who is married to a Yadav, signalling a unity among Dalits and Yadavs on the seat.
Modi ‘magic’
What is common amongst the NDA’s nominees is their entire dependence on Modi’s ‘charisma’ in the battle this season. Be it candidates from the LJP, the Hinudstani Awam Morcha (Secular) or the BJP, they are all seeking votes in the name of Modi.
And to be fair to the prime minister seeking a third term in office, he appears to be quite popular at the ground level. And be it the weakness of the opposition parties or their failure to build a narrative against Hindutva politics, the voters are talking about the absence of an alternative at the national level.
“It’s a national election. If not Modi then who should we vote for”: this is a common refrain among voters. The voters talk about the price rise, unprecedented unemployment, Modi’s false promises, farmers’ distress and growing disparity. But ranging from the communal card (played with more vigour by Modi in 2024), the distribution of five kilograms of food grains among 80 crore families per month and direct cash transfer of Rs 6,000 per annum under the Prime Minister’s Kisan Samman Yojana, voters find their reasons to opt for Modi.
There is a widespread network of cadres, armed with matchless resources, to woo voters at the booth level. They are operating intensively at the grassroots level to strengthen the narrative around Modi. The RJD and the CPI-ML-Liberation – part of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) – do have their cadres, but they are far behind the BJP’s, at least in terms of financial resources and backing from the administration.
One-man army
While Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh, BJP president J.P Nadda and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath all have campaigned for the NDA nominees, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has been working like a proverbial one-man-army.
His father, who was once an indomitable campaigner for his party, has receded into the role of the “guide, guru and philosopher”, while Tejashwi has emerged as a torch-bearer for the embattled INDIA bloc nominees in Bihar. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and the Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav are scheduled to address election meetings at Kishanganj, but this will be after the first phase of polling. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi too are yet to campaign in the state.
Tejashwi Yadav campaigning in Jamui constituency. Photo: X/@yadavtejashwi
But taking a cue from the Congress’s manifesto emphasising on employment, Tejashwi has been promising one crore jobs if INDIA is voted to power. Against the backdrop of Modi focusing on Rama and Hindutva, Tejashwi keeps his speeches confined to employment, livelihood, price rise, caste census, reservation for OBCs, SCs and STs in jobs at the national level, poverty and disparity.
His promises carry weight as he had promised 10 lakh jobs in the 2020 assembly elections, and the Mahagathbandhan government gave over 4.5 lakh jobs to the youth during his 17-months tenure as deputy chief minister. He has effectively blunted Modi’s allegation of corruption by raising the Supreme Court’s verdict on the electoral bonds scam and the BJP getting numerous tainted leaders from other parties into its fold.
But he is yet to emerge as an effective alternative against Modi’s all-India appeal. People, though largely sympathetic to Tejashwi, are heard talking about his relevance or irrelevance in the context of the national election.
Nalin Verma is a senior journalist, author, media educator and independent researcher in folklore.
