Begusarai: The result in Bihar’s Begusarai Lok Sabha constituency is likely to be close. This seat has become the most talked about seat of Bihar due to the electoral battle between National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate and Bharatiya Janata Party Union Minister Giriraj Singh, CPI candidate Kanhaiya Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) Tanweer Hasan.
While Giriraj Singh began his campaign as a reluctant candidate after he was asked to vacate his Nawada seat, Kanhaiya Kumar was told to prepare for the election in the beginning of 2019, which has given him a head-start.
According to Siddharth Singh, who is preparing for competitive examinations, “Until the last moment, Giriraj Singh was sulking because his seat was changed and his statement to the media was noticed by all. He formally started his campaign only in the first week of April. He might have started his political journey from here, but he is still an outsider and to be very frank, he had little time to execute his campaign. Kanhaiya Kumar has been camping here for months now and he has made a lot of impact on the youths.”
While Giriraj Singh is running his campaign from the Vishnu Hotel, which has been converted into a makeshift office near the railway station, Kanhaiya Kumar’s campaign is being managed from his home in Bihat village by a group of volunteers, mostly students. The village has concrete roads and regular electricity. At least three houses in the immediate vicinity of his home have been “donated” by the neighbours to his campaign and are being used either as guest rooms or as offices to run the campaign.
Both candidates leave at 8 in the morning and end their campaign around 11 pm to midnight. “We are doing public meetings in villages across the constituencies. Since this is a new place for Giriraj Singh, he is making a point to touch as many places in the constituency that he can. We are seeking votes in the name of Narendra Modi and development. The roads you used to come to Begusarai from Patna have been developed under Modiji’s rule. It is the media that is making it a Giriraj vs Kanhaiya fight. Our fight is with the RJD, Kanhaiya Kumar will not even be able to save his deposit,” said former BJP MLA Lal Babu Prasad who is in charge of Singh’s campaign.
However, another BJP functionary, who requested anonymity, said that the attraction for the youth voters for Kanhaiya Kumar was a concern for Singh and it was something that they were not being able to “manage”.
According to an estimate, Bhumihars constitute about 19% of voters in Begusarai, followed by Muslims (15%), Yadavs (12%) and Kurmis (7%) of the 19 lakh electorate.
However, the BJP has started its campaign with a loss of 15% voters as they believe and accept that the 15% Muslims will not vote for Singh. “It is a reality. There are no two ways about it. We are focusing on other caste-arithmetic. We believe that the Bhumihars will vote for us en bloc. Singh is the only Bhumihar NDA candidate,” the functionary quoted above said.
BJP’s Bhola Singh had won the seat in 2014, defeating Tanveer Hasan by a margin of over 58,000 votes. Bhola Singh, a former Communist leader, had switched sides to the BJP. With 34.31% of vote-share, Hasan secured nearly 370,000 votes, while Bhola Singh got nearly 428,000 votes or 39.72%. The CPI’s Rajendra Prasad Singh got around 200,000 or 17.87% of the votes.
Dhananjay, a close confidant of Kanhaiya Kumar, who is managing his elections, said that young voters cutting across castes would vote for Kanhaiya Kumar. “When we went to file his nomination, more than 15,000 youths took part in the event; it was a 12 km long procession. His entry in Begusarai has demolished caste barriers. We do not have resources to match the BJP’s, but we have a strong network of volunteers who have come from various parts of India and are working on the ground since the last 2-3 months. We are doing door-to-door campaign and reaching out to every voter,” he said.
Apart from his own team of youngsters, the CPI cadre is also engaged in the planning and execution of Kanhaiya Kumar’s campaign, which is evident in the meticulous and systematic way it is being carried out.
“The fight is between Singh and Kanhaiya Kumar. I believe that we should strengthen Kanhaiya Kumar as he appears to be much better placed than Hasan,” said Ajmal Khan, who runs a small business in the heart of the town.
The BJP believes that the anti-national tag that has come to be associated with Kanhaiya Kumar will dissuade voters from voting from him. Interestingly, both Singh and Hasan are vocal about targeting Kanhaiya Kumar, as a result of which Kumar’s stature has become almost equal to these two veteran leaders.
“Kaafi mehnat karna pad raha hai (He is being forced to work a lot). It is not a cakewalk. Singh would have been in a lot of trouble if Kanhaiya Kumar was a Grand Alliance candidate. If Singh does not take his opponent seriously, he will get a shock,” said Ramendra Singh, the front office manager at a hotel.
Singh is getting the advantage of the BJP’s well-oiled campaign machinery, but there are reports that certain local leaders are not supporting him completely because he is a “usurper” to the Begusarai seat. Kanhaiya Kumar’s campaign is mostly volunteer-sourced, right from cars in the cavalcade to the rice that villagers give to his office for preparing food for the volunteers.
Singh is facing a tough fight in Begusarai and it is not certainly a fight that can be termed as a fight between David and Goliath.