It was the kind of comeback fit for film scripts. A year-and-a-half after his stint with the BJP ended within days as the party developed cold feet over his risque work, Bhojpuri singer-actor Pawan Singh returned – with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and senior BJP ally Upendra Kushwaha present in person to welcome back the star with the right caste credentials, ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls.
Sources said that it is just a matter of time before the BJP seals their new friendship with a ticket for Pawan Singh from the Arrah Assembly seat. Pawan Singh is expected to visit the constituency soon.
The party is counting on a cascading impact in the entire Shahabad region, comprising four districts – Bhojpur, Buxar, Kaimur and Rohtas – and 22 Assembly seats. Pawan Singh belongs to Barhara in Bhojpur. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, after he was dropped by the BJP when the Opposition dug out his “vulgar” songs and music videos, the party had been almost wiped out in Shahabad.
Each of the 22 Assembly seats in Shahabad has a high concentration of upper-caste Rajput votes, which is where Pawan Singh comes in, and OBC Luv-Kush (Kurmi and Koeri) votes, which is the base of Kushwaha and his Rashtriya Lok Marcha (RLM) party.
The widely shared photos of Pawan Singh’s return to the BJP in Delhi included, significantly, those of him and Kushwaha in a warm embrace. After being dropped by the BJP, Pawan Singh had contested as an Independent from the Karakat Lok Sabha seat in 2024 against Kushwaha; the result was that the CPI (M-L) Liberation’s Raja Ram Singh won, with Pawan Singh pushing Kushwaha to the third spot.
It was an embarrassing loss for Kushwaha as he had represented Karakat from 2014 to 2019, while Pawan Singh was a first-time Independent. Subsequently, the BJP had helped the RLM chief to a Rajya Sabha berth.
Sources said that Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, appointed recently as the BJP’s Bihar election in-charge, played a key role in easing Pawan Singh’s way back into the party.
The first time round that the singer-actor joined the BJP, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he had been the party’s pick for the Asansol seat in West Bengal, which borders Bihar and has a substantial Bihari population. It was seen as a good choice as the BJP’s previous MP from Asansol was Babul Supriyo, a singer-writer himself, who defected to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 2021.
However, no sooner had the BJP announced Pawan Singh’s candidature than the TMC circulated several songs featuring the star, slamming them as “vulgar and misogynistic”, and “objectifying women”. Other Opposition parties also took up the issue. The BJP subsequently withdrew the ticket to Pawan Singh, after which he surprised everyone by jumping into the fray from Karakat as an Independent.
Pawan Singh ticks various boxes for the BJP as a candidate from Arrah, the largest of them being caste, and his re-entry followed a meeting Amit Shah held with party workers from Shahabad during his recent Bihar visit.
What would have been top of the agenda at the meeting was the 2024 Lok Sabha poll results, and the NDA winning none of the three constituencies in the region – Buxar, Arrah or Rohtas, while also losing from adjoining half-Shahabad and half-Magadh region seat of Karakat. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the NDA had won all the four constituencies.
Of the Shahabad region’s 22 Assembly seats, the BJP had the first spot only in two in 2024. Its ally JD(U) wasn’t the frontrunner in any. Later, in a bypoll, the BJP won the Ramgarh Assembly seat in the region.
In comparison, in the 2010 Assembly polls, the NDA had together won 17 of the 22 Shahabad seats. In 2015, when the JD(U) contested as a part of the Mahagathbandhan, the NDA got five seats here. However, in the 2020 Assembly polls, even with the JD(U) back in the tent, the NDA had won only two of the 22 Assembly seats in Shahabad.
Projecting that Kushwaha had “forgiven” and “accepted” Pawan Singh was also crucial for the BJP’s caste calculations. After his 2024 loss, Kushwaha had openly blamed “sabotage from within”. A senior BJP leader admitted: “Kushwaha’s loss was because of Pawan Singh contesting against him and the BJP doing little to stop that… The image of the Pawan-Kushwaha meeting sent just the right message to the Kushwahas.”
The leader said the Rajput-Kushwaha combination could also help the BJP in the adjoining Magadh region, which has four Assembly seats – Aurangabad, Rafiganj, Obra and Nabinagar.
The fact that the Kushwahas have traditionally voted in the region for the CPI (M-L) Liberation, a Mahagathbandhan ally – as the community did in 2024, after the Pawan Singh episode – was another reason the BJP was keen to seal the deal.
Asked about Pawan Singh’s return to the BJP, Kushwaha was cryptic at the Delhi event: “Any important leader coming to the NDA adds value to the alliance. I will share the dais with all important leaders of the NDA.”
Apart from securing caste maths, the BJP will also cash in on Pawan Singh’s undeniable appeal as a star campaigner. Having made his debut as a Bhojpuri singer in 1997 with his album O Dhaniyawali, he has to his credit such hits as the song Lagabelu Lipstick, and the films Rangli Chunariya Tohre Naam, Pratigya, Satya, and Crack Fighter, and drew huge crowds to his rallies in 2024.
RJD national spokesperson Subodh Kumar Mehta played down the development. “Kushwaha has lost touch with the ground post-2020 Assembly polls… We will carry forward our (Lok Sabha poll) performance in the Assembly elections. Pawan Singh and Upendra Kushwaha are non-factors for us.”
CPI (M-L) Liberation Bihar state secretary Kunal said: “We can call the embrace of Upendra Kushwaha and Pawan Singh the embrace of Dhritarashtra and Bheema (rivals from the Mahabharata). Why would Kushwaha want Pawan thriving in Shahabad? As for us, there is no threat. We proved our strength by winning two Lok Sabha seats — Arrah and Karakat — in 2024. We did well in the 2020 polls as well, when we won 12 seats mostly from the Shahabad region.”