The wrinkle free road between Patna and Gopalganj; nearly 12-hours of power supply in most villages; vastly improved law and order situation; fertile fields and bumper yield of mango and banana vividly capture the transformation Bihar has undergone during the last nine years of Nitish Kumar’s regime.
Gopalganj is the birthplace of both lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi, but during their 15-year rule, covering the 140-km stretch from Patna to Gopalganj was an eight-hour nightmare for any motorist. Today, it would take a maximum of four hours.
Cutting across caste lines, people acknowledge with a sense of gratitude that Nitish has put the State on the path of peace and prosperity. However, the same man who sees him as a redeemer is not ready to stand by Nitish in his moment of trial. In the 2014 lok Sabha polls, Nitish has been reduced to a silent spectator while lalu Prasad and Narendra Modi occupy the centre stage of a thrilling political duel.
“We’ll vote for the BJP,” said Baban Bir, an old vegetable vendor belonging to the Kushwaha caste, which once formed the axis of Nitish Kumar’s social engineering that tried to unite the extreme backward caste with non-Yadav OBCs.
The old man in a crumpled kurta and lungi was quick to add that in the Assembly elections he would back Nitish Kumar. “Nitish has done so much work for Bihar. But we don’t want the Congress to return at the Centre, so we will support the BJP in the lok Sabha,” he said.
Near Orma Naukatola Village in Siwan, The Pioneer spoke to dozens of villagers who shared Bir’s view about Nitish Kumar’s contribution in changing the face of Bihar; but few were going to vote for him.
The Janata Dal(United) candidate from Siwan, Manoj Singh is battling hard to make his presence felt in what has emerged as a keen contest between Om Prakash Yadav, who recently switched to the BJP and Hina Saheb, wife of jailed don Mohd Sahabuddin. Om Prakash is the sitting MP from Siwan, and hopes to break lalu Prasad’s M-Y combination because of traditional rivalry between the Yadavs and Muslims in Siwan and his own influence among his caste men.
On the other hand, a section of upper caste has always voted at the diktat of Sahabuddin because he and his men have fought a pitched battle against the CPI(M-l) in several pockets of Siwan. But the dent in Nitish Kumar’s vote bank could tilt the scales in favour of the BJP. At the same time it was clear that come the Assembly elections and Nitish could hope to bounce back in a big way.
In Gopalganj, one comes across a similar scenario. Most of the people appreciate the good work done by Nitish, but they see him as a “good Chief Minister” and not a “would-be Prime Minister.”
This perception is also a powerful factor in deciding the choice of Muslim voters. They have sensed that the JD(U) candidate Anil Ram is not strong enough to take on the BJP’s Janak Chamar, who contested on a BSP ticket in 2009 and polled over one lakh votes. On Tuesday, when Nitish Kumar addressed a poll meeting in Manjha, eight kilometres from Gopalganj town, just a handful of Muslims were present to hear him. A day later, when this correspondent talked to people of the area, the Muslims made it clear that they would vote for the RJD in lok Sabha polls to stop Narendra Modi at the Centre and support Nitish Kumar in the Assembly polls for the future of Bihar.
Mohammed Siddqiue, a veteran journalist from Gopalganj, pointed out that Muslim clerics and influential religious institutions of the community had issued a detailed appeal to the Muslims to vote for candidates who could defeat the BJP. “Since the JD(U) is not seen as being capable of preventing the march of Modi, Muslims have reason to abandon Nitish Kumar.”
With the Muslims embracing the Congress’ Jyothi from this reserved constituency and the Kushwahas and a section of the EBC voters veering towards the BJP, the JD(U) candidate is bound to finish as a poor third from here.
The battle here is between the BJP and Congress. A section of the Brahmins are opposed to Janak Chamar, who shared a bitter relationship with the Brahmins when he was in the BJP. locals here point out that he had filed dozens of cases against influential people in the Brahmin community. Sensitive to the unrest among the Brahmins, the Congress has sent Satyavrat Chaturvedi to woo the Brahmins.
In the last few days of campaigning, Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi and lalu Prasad are expected to aggressively campaign in Gopalganj, while Nitish Kumar will have to watch from the sidelines the intensified pro-and-anti Modi battle in the last phase of polls in Bihar.