It is late Saturday evening, and Ramgarh’s higher secondary school ground has just witnessed a rally held by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who sought votes in favour of BJP candidate and sitting Ramgarh MLA Ashok Kumar Singh.
However, the ground continues to hum with activity as the stage is set here for a rally of the Mahagathbandhan’s chief ministerial face and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Sunday – the last day of campaigning for the second phase of the Bihar Assembly polls, which also marks Tejashwi’s birthday.
“We just have to replace the saffron pandal with a green one. Rest of the arrangements will remain the same,” says RJD leader and Buxar MP Sudhakar Singh, whose younger brother Ajeet Singh is the party’s candidate from Ramgarh.
On Sunday, Ramgarh town seems to be abuzz with anticipation of Tejashwi’s arrival. It would be one of the 16 rallies he is scheduled to address during the day.
While all the chairs under a pandal are occupied at the rally venue, the presence of women is not large, unlike Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s rallies. Some attendees have managed to get chairs to sit out in the sun, while a few others occupy the cemented patch around trees. However, a big part of the ground remains empty.
By the time Tejashwi’s helicopter hovers above and lands a little distance away from the ground at 11 am, Sudhakar Singh and Ajeet Singh have already addressed the gathering.
As the “birthday boy” emerges from the chopper, he is greeted with loud cheers. He goes straight for the microphone on the dais. Noting that he has completed 36 years Sunday, Tejashwi said, “But see how Prime Minister (Narendra Modi), Union ministers, Bihar CM and his ministers, the ED, CBI, Income Tax Department as well as the Election Commission (EC) have come together in a bid to stop a 37-year-old,” he tells the gathering.
Calling on people to throw out the 20-year-old “rickety” Nitish government, Tejashwi refers to his promise of one government job per family. “What they could not do in 20 years, Tejashwi will do in 20 months. We will also raise the social security pension to Rs 1,500 and give free electricity to farmers for agriculture. Under the proposed Maa Bahan Maan scheme, we will give Rs 30,000 in one go,” he says in a speech lasting just over three minutes.
“One can imagine how it is like campaigning for 122 seats in four-five days. Tejashwi ji is covering ground in Rohtas, Kaimur, Jehanabad and other places on the final day (of campaigning). All of us are telling people about PM Modi’s vendetta politics and urging them to give Tejashwi ji a chance to govern Bihar,” Sudhakar Singh tells The Indian Express on the sidelines of the rally.
Meanwhile, as his chopper takes flight and the RJD supporters start folding the party flags, Tejashwi waves to the crowd, which waves back towards the skies. However, there is a sense of apprehension among them. “Ye sab theek hai lekin kya humari sarkar bann rahi hai (All this is fine, but are we forming the next government)?” one of them asks.
The Ramgarh seat will see Ashok Kumar Singh and Ajeet Singh caught in a triangular contest with the BSP’s Pintu Yadav. The constituency, which falls under the Buxar Lok Sabha segment, saw the BJP edge out the BSP by a slender margin in last year’s Assembly bypoll, necessitated by the election of Sudhakar Singh to the Lok Sabha.
This time, Sudhakar Singh has taken up the charge for the RJD’s campaign in Ramgarh, a seat seen as his family’s bastion. It was held by his father and former RJD state president Jagdanand Singh six times between 1985 and 2005, while his uncle (Jagdanand Singh’s elder brother) Sachchidanand Singh won it as a Sanyukta Socialist Party candidate in 1967 and 1972, and as a Janata Party nominee in 1977.
Jagdanand Singh is still regarded as one of the tallest Rajput leaders of the RJD and is credited with giving the party a progressive image.
The NDA and the Mahagathbandhan will also have to contend with the significant presence of the BSP in Kaimur and Rohtas – two districts in Bihar’s Shahabad region that border Uttar Pradesh.
“Yadav seems to be ahead in the race. He lost by a small margin in the bypoll. Yadav votes may shift in his favour to keep the BJP at bay. Ajeet Singh is likely to finish third,” says Pankaj Kumar, a shopkeeper in Ramgarh.
Rice mill employee Ravi Mandal echoes Pankaj’s view. “The dashazari (Rs 10,000 to 1.21 crore women entrepreneurs) scheme is not much of a factor here. With Ramgarh having more than 45,000 Dalits, the BSP wields significant influence here. The deciding voters, however, are the Rajputs, who number around 40,000. If the BJP manages to get 80% of these, it may win or it would be the BSP. Ajeet Singh is not Jagdanand Singh anyway and Tejashwi too does not seem as confident as last time,” he adds.