At about 2 pm on a sunny afternoon, the crowd at the Brahmpur high school ground erupts as RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav alights from a helicopter for his first visit to the Buxar Lok Sabha constituency to campaign for party candidate and former Bihar minister Sudhakar Singh. As part of the Mahagathbandhan government, Sudhakar had left many red faces in the ranks with his criticism of the alliance’s Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, over his “failure to tackle rampant corruption in the Agriculture Department”. Sudhakar was eventually told to resign by the RJD, to placate its partner JD(U), but in his rebellion, the former minister scored a moral and political victory and now carries a pro-farmer image, blurring castelines. Tejashwi pitching in for Sudhakar is significant, but then the Buxar Lok Sabha seat is a prestige constituency. Located next to Varanasi, from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting, Buxar is often referred to as “mini Kashi” by the BJP. Like Tejashwi, Sudhakar too has grown out of his father’s shadow. Sudhakar’s father Jagdanand Singh, a Bihar RJD president and former Buxar MP, is known to have good relations with RJD chief Lalu Prasad. In fact, the only time the BJP has not won the Buxar Lok Sabha seat since 1996 is when Jagdanand was victorious in 2009. Taking the stage at the high school ground, Tejashwi starts by attacking Modi, and praises Sudhakar for having “served the people of Buxar” as Ramgarh MLA and agriculture minister. As the RJD leader moves on to another meeting after a quick halt, Sudhakar steps in to take questions from reporters, exuding confidence about defeating Mithilesh Tiwari, who has been fielded by the BJP after dropping Union minister and sitting MP Ashwini Kumar Choubey. The other candidates in the race include former IPS officer Anand Mishra, who was also a BJP aspirant, contesting as an Independent, and Dadan Pahalwan. In an interview to The Indian Express enroute to Buxar city, Sudhakar says: “I have completed 100 days of campaigning, held over 500 public meetings and 500 nukkad sabhas. I am also using social media platforms to reach out to people.” His team has been playing up a 2015 Assembly poll video where Modi is seen blaming the Nitish government for not working for farmers, to attack the NDA. Sudhakar is also playing the native card. “Tiwari is not from Buxar. Choubey was also an outsider. I am telling people how Choubey took a proposed cancer hospital and research centre away from Buxar to his home district of Bhagalpur,” he says. While his campaign rests on his pro-farmer image, Sudhakar also speaks about the RJD’s “deft” social engineering through “Ambedkar pe Charcha (discussion on Ambedkar)” sessions. According to him, this has helped the RJD create a base among the Kushwahas, otherwise seen to be a core voter base of Nitish and Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Upendra Kushwaha. Sudhakar also mentions the inclusion of Mukesh Sahani’s Vikasheel Insaan Party (VIP) into the INDIA bloc, “further consolidating” the Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) in its favour. “Buxar can be a case study of RJD’s A-Z politics that goes beyond the party’s traditional tag of being a M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) party,” he says. The Buxar Lok Sabha seat has six Assembly segments falling under it. The RJD holds three (Ramgarh, Dinara and Brahmpur), the Congress two (Buxar and Rajpur), and the CPI(ML) one (Dumraon). With an electorate of 18.5 lakh, the constituency has around six lakh EBCs, two lakh Yadavs, 1.75 lakh each Rajputs, Brahmins and Ravidas (SC) voters. It also has 1.5 lakh Kushwaha voters and around 80,000 Bhumihar voters. While there is a possibility of Pahalwan cutting into the RJD votes, rebel BJP candidate Mishra is likely to eat into the NDA’s vote base. At 4 pm, Sudhakar reaches the party office in Buxar amid chants of “Sudhakar bhaiyya zindabad”. Here, he seeks updates from his team, comprising 100 offline and as many online volunteers, most of them fresh graduates. At another place, RJD poll strategist Shaswat Gautam tells him how his team is micromanaging the at the booth level with “prisht prabharis”, a term similar to the BJP’s “panna prabhari”. At 5.30pm, Sudhakar and his team got ready for this election’s “first ever boat show”, to send out a message to the boatmen community as well as ally Sahani. Fifteen boats with RJD flags line up as drones hover to take aerial shots. Waving to the crowd, Sudhakar points to the heaps of plastic along the Ganga’s banks. “Is this how the PM is cleaning the Ganga? Let people here know where the money meant for cleaning the river is being used,” he says as he deboards to offer prayers at the Nath Baba temple. Back on the boat, he heads to the Ram Rekha Ghat, the only ghat with a wide staircase and steel railings and where an elaborate Ganga aarti is planned. Around 6.30 pm, as Sudhakar joins the Ganga aarti, people jostle to catch a glimpse. “Ganga is a part of our cultural heritage and we must respect our traditions,” he says. Asked if this is the RJD’s “soft Hindutva”, he quips: “We are all religious. It is not an exclusive right of any particular party or ideology.” The last item on Sudhakar’s agenda is a 2-km roadshow through the Buxar market. A man shouts from the crowd: “You must do namaste more, rather than waving to the crowd.” Sudhakar says every suggestion is welcome.
