Rupaul Assembly by-election.
– Photo : Amar Ujala
Expansion
Independent Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who won the Purnia Lok Sabha seat, has come out to support Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Bima Bharti, who lost the election. Meaning, he has in a way joined hands with Rashtriya Janata Dal’s national president Lalu Prasad Yadav and Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav. Bima Bharti is the RJD candidate in the by-election of Rupauli assembly seat. Meaning, independent MP Pappu Yadav is also with the strength of the Grand Alliance. On the other hand, on this seat, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s party Janata Dal United has fielded a candidate from the National Democratic Alliance, while a rebel from Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) has also contested. The big question here is how much support JDU gets from Chirag’s party. BJP wants to win this seat. Nitish too. Nitish had put acting national president Sanjay Jha on this task as soon as he came to Bihar. So, now Wednesday is tomorrow. Voting is tomorrow. With this it will be decided whose prestige remains and whose goes? Counting of votes for this seat is to be held on July 13.
Tough competition between Bima Bharti, Kaladhar Mandal and Shankar Singh
While the Janata Dal United has given ticket to Kaladhar Mandal from this seat, the Rashtriya Janata Dal has expressed confidence in Bima Bharti, who resigned from the membership of the Legislative Assembly and joined the party before the Lok Sabha elections. At the same time, Shankar Singh, who is contesting as a rebel independent from LJP (Ram Vilas), is also busy mobilizing his voters. Bima Bharti was elected as an MLA from this seat on a JDU ticket in the 2020 elections. According to political analysts, the highest number of Gangota voters in the assembly constituency is more than 70 thousand. There are 45 thousand Kurmi-Kushwaha voters and 50 thousand Yadav-Muslims. Apart from these, tribals, Scheduled Castes, Vaishya etc. votes are also in good numbers here. There are 11 candidates in the election fray. Candidates of both RJD and JDU come from the Gangota caste. At the same time, due to having a deep penetration in the Gangota community as well as a strongman image, the infamous Awadhesh Mandal has dominated these voters till now.
Bima had defeated Kaladhar Mandal and Shankar Singh in 2020
On the other hand, Purnia MP Pappu Yadav has openly supported Bima Bharti by calling her his daughter. After the support of MP Pappu Yadav, apart from Bima Bharti’s cadre voters Gangota, Yadav and Muslim voters are seen shifting directly towards Bima Bharti. This can make the path of not only NDA candidate Kaladhar Mandal but also former MLA and independent candidate Shankar Singh very difficult. At the same time, it is not right to underestimate independent candidate Shankar Singh. Shankar Singh’s supporters are claiming to get votes from every caste and class as an independent along with upper caste and Dalit votes. In fact, when Bima Bharti was in JDU, apart from Kurmi, Kushwaha and Koeri, Vaishya voters kept shifting towards her. Due to this, Bima Bharti’s journey to victory was easy. Earlier in the 2020 assembly elections, Vikas Chandra Mandal, Kaladhar Mandal and former LJP MLA Shankar Singh contested the elections and all three were defeated badly. By defeating them, Bima Bharti became MLA for the fifth time.
Shankar Singh was in second place in the 2020 elections
Former MLA Shankar Singh, who stood second in Purnia in 2020, is trying his luck as an independent candidate. Shankar Singh has been contesting elections from here continuously since the year 2000. LJP made him a candidate in the Assembly Elections-2020, in which he came second by getting 44,994 votes. At the same time, Shankar Singh became MLA from Rupauli Assembly in February 2005 on LJP ticket. However, when the election was held again in November 2005, he lost. He has contested assembly elections from Rupauli seat six times. In the 2010 assembly elections, Shankar Singh was the RJD-backed LJP candidate. He stood second in the election. At the same time, in 2015, after not getting a ticket from the party, he contested the election as an independent, in which he came third. Similarly, in 2020, LJP again made him a candidate, in which he came second by getting 44,994 votes. Just before the Rupauli assembly by-election, he resigned from the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas).
Candidates of Gangauta caste are in the fray from both the parties
The Rupauli by-election is being considered as a litmus test of brand Nitish as well as the new equation of votes created by RJD in the Lok Sabha elections. RJD may have won only four seats in the Lok Sabha elections, but the Mahagathbandhan led by it had won nine seats in Bihar. If Purnia is added, the number will become 10. This time RJD was successful to some extent in making inroads into the Kurmi-Kushwaha community, which is considered to be the core voter of JDU. On the other hand, candidates of Gangauta caste are in the fray from both the parties. In such a situation, it is also being said that the votes of this largest community of extremely backward class, which earlier used to go with Bima, may get divided. In this arithmetic of votes, the stand of independent MP Pappu Yadav has also surprised.
