Bihar bypolls: The devil in the detail

The data shows us that in recent elections, when there is a direct contest between the Congress and BJP, the latter mostly triumphs. This, however, changes when a regional party confronts the BJP, increasing the chances of defeating India's ruling and pre-eminent party.

Therefore, it is useful to examine what happened in the recent bye-elections when the BJP came up against regional forces, most significantly in Bihar. It was the first electoral test since Nitish Kumar dumped the BJP and formed an alliance with the RJD, a coalition that is seen as formidable with the capacity to seriously dent the BJP in the next Lok Sabha polls as Bihar sends 40 MPs to Parliament. In the 2019 national election, the BJP-led alliance that then included Nitish Kumar's JD (U) had virtually swept the state.

First, the recent bye-elections in Bihar took place for assembly seats, not the Lok Sabha ones. The result was mixed but revealed the BJP's capacity to hang in there. They contested two seats, in Mokama for the first time and in Gopalganj, held by the BJP since 2005. They lost the former and won the latter.

Read | Bypolls: Lotus blooms in four seats, Congress faces another setback

It's interesting to go into some detail about what happened in both seats, as it also shows the continued shadows of the Dons of Bihar, both living and dead. First, let's understand what went down in Gopalganj, where it was expected that the RJD could eventually beat the BJP now that the alliance was in power in the state and Nitish Kumar had abandoned the BJP.

Yet the BJP candidate Kusum Devi won the Gopalganj bye-election by a narrow margin of just 1,794 votes over the RJD candidate, Mohan Prasad Gupta. But the post-result data reveals that Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM played a crucial role in shaping the BJP's victory. According to the Election Commission's data, AIMIM candidate Abdul Salam polled 12,214 votes - about seven times more than the winning margin of the BJP candidate, Kusum Devi. She received 70,053 (41.6 per cent) votes, while Mohan Prasad Gupta of the RJD polled 68,259 (40.53 per cent) votes.

Simultaneously, the wife of Sadhu Yadav, brother-in-law of Lalu Prasad Yadav, now exiled from the party and family, contested on a BSP symbol and got 8,853 votes. One of Lalu's daughters would later call him "Kamsa Mama", a reference to the mythological figure who betrayed his own family and was later slain by Lord Krishna.

Family fights apart, the more intriguing question is why a section of Gopalganj's Muslim voters would abandon RJD, the rare party in contemporary times that's never had an understanding, overt or covert, with the BJP. The articulation of Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav on issues that can be described as secular is in keeping with that of his father.

The answer lies in the shadow of the now dead don Mohammad Shahabuddin, whose wife and son are still technically in the RJD but hold a grievance against the Lalu family for not giving them due importance and respect. The areas from where a chunk of votes have gone to the AIMIM borders Siwan, the one-time stronghold of the don where his
family is believed to have been working for the AIMIM in this bye-election.

It may also be recalled that the AIMIM had upset RJD calculations in the 2020 assembly poll when it won five assembly seats in Bihar and damaged the RJD in a few more. Yet, four of the five AIMIM MLAs would subsequently defect to the RJD.

Another factor for the so-called upset in Gopalganj was the choice of a candidate from the Baniya caste, a Mohan Prasad Gupta, by the RJD, possibly in the hopes of getting some of the community votes in this election. As it turned out, all the Savarna castes stuck with the BJP, while the core Muslim voters of the party did some signalling that they should not be taken for granted. It's also important to point out that in Bihar, Muslims do not live in the shadow of fear as they do in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, and therefore feel free to express themselves in the multiplicity of choices.

Just as a wife of a late don played a covert role, in both the Bihar by-polls, wives won because of the legacies of their husbands, another trend in Indian politics. For instance, Kusum Devi, the victorious BJP candidate from Gopalganj, is the wife of Subhash Singh, whose death necessitated the by-poll. He had actually held the seat for the BJP from 2005 onwards without a single defeat, quite an impressive feat.

Likewise, in Mokama, it was Neelam Devi, the wife of Don Anant Singh, who won the seat on an RJD ticket and this election was necessitated by her husband being convicted and therefore disqualified from being a people's representative. Anant Singh is a fierce character who has always won Mokama since 2005, both on a JD(U) and RJD ticket and also as an independent.

In his case, reality is louder and more caricatured than fiction, and Anant Singh is a fierce moustachioed character who struts around with guns with men with more guns. He is a symbol of upper caste Bhumihar power but also a Robin Hood at times, as most dons are. He is a terror in his area and has cases ranging from murder to kidnapping against him. He calls himself Chotte Sarkar (small government), just as Mohammad Shahabuddin would be referred to as the Sahib of Siwan. He is in jail now but very much alive. Shahabuddin was in jail when he died in 2021.

In understanding two election results from Bihar, therefore, it can be said that the devil lies in the details. These details would be different in a national election.

(Saba Naqvi is a journalist and author)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.