As Bihar seat-sharing talks gather pace, Mukesh Sahani’s VIP (Vikassheel Insaan Party), which is driving a hard bargain within the Mahagathbandhan, is understood to be also looking at the NDA.
Sources said the NDA has been sending feelers to Sahani, who was earlier a part of the BJP-led alliance, and is not averse to bringing him back.
Sahani is reportedly demanding at least 30 seats from the Mahagathbandhan, and could get at most 10 to 15. Sources said the NDA is trying to lure Sahani over by offering seats which he has a better chance of winning.
If Sahani switches sides, it would be a repeat of five years ago. A part of the Mahagathbandhan then, he had moved to the NDA ahead of the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections, unhappy over the number of seats offered to him by the RJD-led alliance.
With the Lok Janshakti Party contesting separately, the VIP had secured 11 seats in the NDA at the time, the most after the BJP and JD(U). The VIP had gone on to win four seats. However, within a year, one of its MLAs had died, and in 2022, the remaining three had joined the BJP, amidst souring of ties between the VIP and the BJP.
Subsequently, Sahani had quit the NDA and returned to the Mahagathbandhan.
While the BJP is said to have opened channels with him again, RJD sources claimed confidence that Sahani would stay in the Mahagathbandhan as the alliance was allowing him to pick his own candidates. In contrast, in 2020, the BJP had given the names of candidates for the VIP to field.
Originally from Darbhanga, Sahani once worked as a set decorator in Bollywood. The 44-year-old ventured into politics around 2013, and floated the VIP in 2018, projecting himself as the ‘Son of Mallah’.
By then, he had already shown enough flexibility when it came to political loyalties. Before the 2014 polls, he rallied the Nishads behind Narendra Modi, then the BJP’s rising star and prime ministerial candidate. After the BJP’s landslide victory, though, Sahani opened channels with JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar. By the time the Bihar elections of 2015 came around, Sahani popped up as the BJP’s “star campaigner”.
Come 2019, Sahani took his VIP into the RJD camp.
What the jostling for Sahani between the two Bihar camps underlines is the political significance of his Mallah group, a part of the larger Nishad group bouquet, which in turn forms a big chunk of the Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) umbrella.
The VIP is seen to wield considerable influence among the boatmen and fishermen communities based in the riverine belts of North Bihar.
According to the 2023 Bihar caste survey, the Nishad community comprises approximately 9.6% of the state’s total population, with the Mallah sub-group to which Sahani belongs making up 2.6% of its numbers.
Apart from Mallahs, the Nishad community includes Bind, Manjhi, Kewat and Turha groups. It has been historically marginalised, with its members barely eking a living out of traditional riverine occupations.
In the closely contested election expected in Bihar, consolidation of any community behind either the Mahagathbandhan or the NDA could prove decisive. The Nishads could be influential in Muzaffarpur, East Champaran, Madhubani, Khagaria, Vaishali and certain other North Bihar districts.
Earlier, in the period after the J P Narayan Movement, the Nishad voters were seen as aligned with social justice parties that sprung from that agitation. Former Union minister Captain Jainarayan Nishad, who passed away in 2018, represented the Muzaffarpur constituency multiple times on both RJD and JD(U) tickets before switching to the BJP.
In the 2019 polls, Jainarayan Nishad’s son Ajay fought and won on a BJP ticket from the constituency. He later switched to the Congress, and lost the 2024 polls.
Both in 2020 and now, the VIP is believed to be bargaining for more seats than its political heft – and the willingness of senior partners to comply is a reflection of its importance.
An RJD leader said: “The Nishads are a significant vote bank and the Mallahs are the most assertive among them. We see the VIP rallying the support of other sub-groups as well. With our focus on the EBCs in these polls, accommodating him could help us expand our social base. This was precisely the reason that the BJP gave him 11 seats in 2020.”
Another reason that makes the NDA attractive for Sahani is the VIP’s lacklustre performance when in the Mahagathbandhan. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the VIP had contested three seats – Muzaffarpur, Khagaria and Madhubani – and lost all. Sahani had himself lost to the LJP’s Mehboob Ali Kaisar by 2.5 lakh votes from Khagaria.
Sahani got only 27% votes in the seat, the same as what the RJD got in Khagaria in 2014, when contesting on its own.
After a stint in the NDA, the VIP re-contested the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as a Mahagathbandhan ally – with results that were only a shade better. It lost all the three seats it contested – Purvi Champaran, Jhanjharpur and Gopalganj – again, but improved its overall vote share from 1.66% in 2019 to 2.71%.