As the electoral battle in Bihar shifts to Seemanchal and eastern region of the state, the polarisation for and against Bharatiya Janata Party becomes more acute as there is the high concentration of Muslim voters in the seven seats for which voting will take place on April 24 in the sixth phase of Lok Sabha elections. The seats voting on April 24 are Banka, Bhagalpur, Katihar, Kishanganj, Purnia, Araria and Supaul.
In fact it is the charisma of RJD chief Lalu Prasad that is the biggest stumbling block for the BJP in the seven seats going to vote. The extremely aggressive campaign by Lalu in Seemanchal and Bhagalpur has seen a consolidation of votes in favour of his party and alliance partners who hope to win most of the seven seats voting in the third phase of elections in Bihar.
Muslims are almost 70 per cent of the electorate in Kishanganj where Janata Dal United candidate Akhtarul Iman declared that he won't contest so that the minority vote doesn't split and goes en bloc to Congress's Asrarul Haque. The move saw the BJP crying foul as its candidate Dilip Kumar Jaiswal was hoping to benefit from the division of Muslim votes. But with Iman pulling out, Jaiswal faces an almost insurmountable task against the sitting Congress MP.
While Kishanganj may seem to be an exception with Muslims in majority, the community is in a position to play the kingmaker in Purnia, Araria and Katihar too. Katihar has almost 43 per cent Muslims while in Araria it is over 41 per cent. Purnia with almost 30 per cent, Bhagalpur 20 per cent and Supaul, which has over 15 per cent Muslim voters, too are giving nightmares to the BJP. Banka has just 13 per cent Muslims and the BJP is finding the going a little easy here.
The BJP had won Purnia, Katihar, Araria and Bhagalpur in 2009 while Putul Kumari, the Independent MP from Banka, joined the party just a couple of months back although her late husband Digvijay Singh had won the seat on a JDU ticket. Supaul went to JDU while Congress won in Kishanganj.
Even the overemphasis of the BJP on backward castes seems to be following the path of diminishing returns with its traditional vote bank of forwards castes feeling slighted. While they have not openly come out against any of the party nominees, the relatively lower turnout in the seven seats - Buxar, Jehanabad, Arrah, Munger, Nalanda, Patna Sahib and Pataliputra - which voted on April 17 has sent the alarm bells ringing in the party's state unit.
A couple of senior BJP leaders told IBNLive on conditions of anonymity that they are worried over the party's traditional supporters not coming out to vote in large numbers. One of them said that many BJP voters seemed confident that since the party is anyway winning the election, so they can take it easy which may prove to be detrimental when EVMs are opened and results declared on May 16. He added that in Bihar the fight was between the BJP-LJP-RLSP combine and the RJD-Congress-NCP alliance with the JDU relegated to the third spot.
But in Seemanchal and Bhagalpur the going is proving to be very tough for the party which is aiming to sweep a majority of the 40 seats in Bihar in its bid to return to power at the Centre after 10 years especially following the apathy of forward castes.
Except Purnia where JDU's Santosh Kushwaha is seen as the strongest candidate to take on the BJP, in all the other seats it is the RJD-Congress-NCP alliance which is making it tough for the saffron brigade.
RJD's Mohammad Taslimuddin, a veteran of many political battles and a man charged with several serious criminal offences, is facing BJP sitting MP Pradip Kumar Singh and JDU's Vijay Mandal in Araria. BJP leaders accuse JDU of deliberately putting up a candidate who will take away the votes of the OBCs, EBCs and Mahadalits to ensure Singh's defeat.
The scenario is no different in Purnia where JDU candidate Santosh Kushwaha takes on yet another sitting MP Uday Singh of BJP and Congress's Amarnath Tiwari. Here the charge is against the Congress but the BJP, too, is facing criticism of repeating a MP who is not very popular due to his unapproachable nature after the 2009 win. Incidentally Uday Singh is the younger brother of Nand Kishore Singh, the former JDU leader who joined the BJP just a few weeks ago. NCP leader Tariq Anwar is making it difficult for BJP's Nikhil Chaudhary in Katihar. The other prominent candidate is Ram Prakash Mahto of JDU.
While BJP's Shahnawaz Hussain has already represented Bhagalpur, the famous silk town of Bihar, this time is path is not easy as the party is not united behind him. Although Hussain is confident that BJP's tie up with Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP and Upendra Kushwaha's RLSP will bring in the votes that will propel him to victory, his own party is not united in Bhagalpur.
BJP MLA Ashwini Kumar Chaubey, the candidate from Buxar, had been eyeing Bhagalpur and his supporters have been playing truant during the campaign. BJP's rivals, too, have formidable candidates in the fray. While RJD has put up Shailesh Kumar, JDU's Abu Qaiser and BSP candidate Naushaba Khanam are eyeing the minority, EBCs and Mahadalit votes.
Even in Banka which does not have a large Mulsim vote bank BJP's Putul Kumari faces a strong candidate in Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav of the RJD and Santosh Kumar of the CPI, which is in alliance with the JDU.
Congress candidate Ranjeet Ranjan, the wife of RJD candidate Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, is the frontrunner. She faces BJP's Kameshwar Chaupal and Dileshwar Kamat of the JDU, both of whom are considered to be weak.
Sensing that a poor show will derail its plan of winning over 25 seats from the state, the state BJP leadership has gone into an overdrive. BJP leaders are trying to ensure that its voters come out in large numbers on April 24.
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