PM Modi in Patna(L), with Bihar BJP President Dilip Jaiswal and others joins hands during a public meeting ahead of Bihar Assembly elections, in Arrah.
Credit: PTI Photos
A piercing miasma of urine and solid waste, generated both by humans and animals, strikes your nostrils at the Ara bus station as you step out of the vehicle. Unbeknownst to the all-pervasive olfactory intrusions, passengers and passersby flock to roadside eateries, doing brisk business, in the midst of a drizzle precipitated by the cyclonic turbulence in the Bay of Bengal.
“Maale (pronounced maa-lay as CPI (ML) Liberation is colloquially called) has a good candidate. Quyamuudin Ansari is a local and readily available,” says Pankaj Gupta, handing over a plate of samosas dunked in chickpea-potato curry.
Sounds a little odd, coming from a voter, from a traditional trading community in an urban setting, seen to be a BJP stronghold. But if you have crossed the Sone River west of the capital Patna to enter the Bhojpur belt, once the epicenter of the Left extremist armed struggle in Bihar, such voices, though few, are not surprising.
In the early 80s, a section of the Naxal cadre in Bihar decided to come overground to participate in the parliamentary democracy that led to the formation of the Indian People’s Front IPF. The metamorphosis of an underground armed movement to a political party participating in parliamentary democracy was complete when Rameshwar Prasad of IPF won the 1989 LS polls from Bhojpur. The IPF later broadened its base among like-minded Left factions to rechristen itself Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation.
Since its support base among the backward, Dalits, and other poorer sections overlapped with the Mandal parties like the RJD and JD(U), the CPI (ML) Liberation continued to poll votes over the years, but not enough to win seats. It all changed in the 2020 assembly elections when Congress, CPI(ML), and RJD joined hands to complement one another.
The result was for everyone to see. In the Shahpur belt, comprising 22 seats in Bhojpur, Kaimur, Rohtas, and Buxar districts, bordering Uttar Pradesh, the alliance won 20 out of 22 seats, with CPI (ML) bagging 12 out of 19 seats in the contested, most in this region.
NDA’s tally plummeted in the adjoining Magadh region, or central Bihar as well, where the Left has pockets of influence. The bonhomie between the I.N.D.I.A. bloc partners got further cemented in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls when CMI(ML) won two seats- Karakat and Ara.
Acutely aware of the lacunae in its strategy, NDA, especially the BJP, has set out to take corrective measures. It has thrashed out a ceasefire between its ally Upendra Kushwaha and Bhojpuri actor Pawan Singh, who jumped into the fray as an independent in the 2024 LS polls to damage alliance prospects.
The return of Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ramvilas) into the NDA fold may also boost NDA prospects. Paswan walked out of the NDA ahead of the 2020 assembly polls and fielded candidates in 143 seats, including many in the Shahabad and Magadh belt.
In the Ara main market, Valmiki Paswan, clad in a burmuda and a loosely hanging vest over a wiry torso, waits for his turn to ferry commuters to the railway station on his e-rickshaw. “I will vote for the BJP alliance,” he says, adding sheepishly that he is also an office bearer in the local unit of the party.
“Apart from the Ravidas community among the Dalits, we are well placed to get votes from a large section of the Scheduled Castes, especially the Paswans or Dushaad that make up for almost 5 percent of the electorate,” says a BJP leader in Patna. Having learnt its lessons, the party is keeping its guards up.
At Chiraiyya bazaar, which is part of the Sandesh assembly segment, the opinion among the backward voters, especially the Extremely Backward Castes, is divided over their support for the BJP.
Five km further down the road at Balaur, Sita Paswan is haggling at a retail shop to procure provisions for her kiosk she has opened with the Rs. 10,000 she has got in her account under the state government’s employment generation scheme for women.
“With the money, I have been running a shop in my village. Nitish Kumar has done some good work,” she says. Her neighbor, who hasn’t received the money yet, is complaining.
NDA hopes that 1.21 cr beneficiaries selected under the scheme would be a game-changer in areas where the ideological resistance to the BJP’s Bihar project is being led by the Left.
On our way back to Patna, we encounter a massive jam at the Ara railway station. Two bodies, father and son, murdered in a property rivalry, have been placed on the road as CPI (ML) cadres protest.
“It’s Jungal Raj in Bihar,” remarks a protester in an apparent rebuttal to the common refrain on the state’s law and order during Lalu Yadav’s regime. The battle for Bhojpur is well and truly on.