Begusarai has long been known as the ‘Leningrad of Bihar’ or as ‘Mini Moscow’ because of the political dominance of the Communist Party of India (CPI), which emerged in the region to counter the feudalism allegedly practiced by the Congress party for decades.
Over one hundred political workers belonging to the Communist and Congress parties have been murdered in the villages of Begusarai over the years. The BJP entered Begusarai’s political space in 2014 when its candidate Bhola Singh won the Lok Sabha election, and the party’s presence peaked in 2019 when its nominee Giriraj Singh won the constituency, defeating CPI candidate Kanhaiya Kumar, a former president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student’s Union, by over four lakh votes.
The Begusarai constituency has also been a stronghold of the upper caste Bhumihar community; since Independence, every candidate who has won the seat hailed from this community, except in 2009, when Janata Dal (United) candidate Monazir Hassan won the poll. This time round, BJP candidate and sitting MP Giriraj Singh, a Bhumihar, is pitted against Awadhesh Kumar Rai, a former three-time CPI MLA from the Bachhwara Assembly constituency, who comes from the backward Yadav caste.
Out of total 21 lakh voters in Begusarai, there are over three lakh Bhumihars, while Yadavs and Muslims account for over 2.5 lakh voters each. “But one does not know that backward and extremely backward class voters outnumber all these caste groups in the constituency,” said Abhishek Kumar, a young voter who also runs a news portal.
United Opposition candidate
In 2019, the Opposition’s votes were divided as both the CPI and the Rashtriya Janata Dal had put up their own candidates, facilitating Mr. Singh’s smooth win by a huge margin. Mr. Rai, however, has been fielded as a joint Opposition candidate. “This time, our candidate is going to get the votes of all Opposition mahagathbandhan parties. Votes will not be divided this time and I’m confident that the CPI will pocket the Begusarai seat in this election,” Shatrughan Prasad Singh, a former CPI MP who held the Begusarai seat from 1996 to 1998, told The Hindu at the local CPI office in the town. He is also chairman of the party’s State executive central committee and manages the party’s poll campaign in Begusarai.
Yogendra Sharma was the first CPI MP from Begusarai in 1967. The party represented the Begusarai Lok Sabha constituency as well as the erstwhile Ballia LS constituency four times in 1967, 1980, 1989, and 1996. The Congress party too has represented the constituency several times since 1952. Ballia was separated from the Begusarai Lok Sabha constituency in 2009. Currently, the Begusarai Lok Sabha seat comprises seven Assembly constituencies: Teghra and Bakhri (CPI), Begusarai and Bachhwara (BJP), Sahebpur Kamal and Cheriabariyarpur (RJD), and Maithani (JD-U).
‘Loud-mouth’ sitting MP
The sitting BJP MP and party candidate Mr. Giriraj Singh is currently unpopular even among his own Bhumihar community, because of his “loud mouth” and “doing Hindu-Muslim”. Recently, a video went viral on social media in which Mr. Singh, who is also a Union Minister, can be heard saying, “I do not need the vote of traitors… I strongly hate the tukde-tukde gang.”
“Any attempt to give communal colour to the election is wrong. I’ve lodged a complaint,” said Mr. Shatrughan Prasad Singh.
Voters’ resentment against Mr. Giriraj Singh is so high in the constituency that he was recorded in another video appealing to voters to vote for him just to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister again. “Meri galti ki saja Modi ji ko mat dijiye. Mujhko nahi, Modi ji ko vote dijiye (Please do not punish Modiji for my fault. Vote for Modi ji, not for me).”
‘Modi is essential’
“Yes, we’ll vote for PM Modi, not for this loud-mouth Giriraj Singh,” said Ashwani Kumar alias Babluji, speaking to The Hindu at Simaria village. He is the grandson of famous Hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, who also hails from the Bhumihar community.
A group of backward class men from Pipradih village in the Bihat area — Upendra Yadav, Kailas Mahto, Shankar Rai and others — were playing cards on a muggy afternoon on May 6 on the premises of a local temple premises. “He (Giriraj Singh) should not win the election this time as he does Hindu-Muslim in every issue of the constituency and also very loud-mouth, but we tell you, he will win the poll because of PM Modi, though with a very thin margin.” they said.
At another village near Pahadchak, Rameshwar Sharma, an upper caste Bhumihar, said, “Giriraj majboori hai, lekin Modi jaruri hai (Giriraj Singh is our compulsion but PM Modi is essential)”.
Enemies turned friends
The Bihat area of Begusarai is home to over 50 women who were widowed after their husbands, working as Communist or Congress party workers, died in the violent clashes for political dominance during the 1970s and 1980s. “The bloodbath began when the Communists resisted the then-Congress party which was dominated and supported by the feudal lords at that time,” CPI state secretary Indu Bhushan Verma said.
“But see how times change; this time, even the Congress leaders are campaigning in support of the CPI candidate... Time heals everything. For our candidate, this is the golden time, and we will win the election,” he added.
Begusarai goes to the polls in the fourth phase on May 13.
