On Tuesday, the morning sky in Patna lit up before sunrise. Firecrackers illuminated the horizon, the air echoed with Chhath songs, and children ran along the Digha Ghat of the Ganga. As dawn approached, devotees began gathering. Many had spent the night here, others were returning, having left the previous evening after offering prayers to the setting sun.
Men carried “daalis (baskets)” filled with puja material on their heads, followed closely by women, many of whom had been fasting since Monday morning. After arranging their offerings by the riverbank, carefully aligning the ritual items, they stepped waist-deep into the Ganga.
It was time to offer arghya to the rising sun, marking the conclusion of Bihar’s grandest festival, Chhath.
At Digha Ghat on Monday evening (Photo: Himanshu Harsh)
Sarda Devi, 35, recalled that she had been coming to a ghat for the Chhath since she was barely a teen, nearly two decades ago, about the same time as JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar became the Chief Minister for the first time.
Wrapped up with Chhath, as Bihar turns its full attention to the elections, Sarda said she remembers these 20 years for another reason: the changes under Nitish. “It was under Nitish ji’s government that all these bridges and roads were built. Earlier, this entire area was just farmland, and to get here one had to take local trains,” she said. The ‘Atal Path’ and ‘JP Ganga Path’ road projects have transformed connectivity in Patna, by providing two straight links to the river.
Sarda is also grateful for the Nitish government’s JEEViKA self-help group initiative, introduced in 2006 by Nitish, a year into his first term as CM. Approximately 1.35 crore women are its members now, with Sarda joining in November last year. “Getting a bank loan used to be almost impossible for women. With JEEViKA, it’s much easier, and the interest rates are also lower,” she said.
Radha, 29, too, called the JEEViKA programme a lifeline. Her husband works as a daily wage labourer without a steady income. “Through JEEViKA, I got a job at Didi ki Rasoi (community kitchen). I earn Rs 8,000 a month, which brings us stability. Earlier, we relied on 10-15 days of uncertain daily wages. It was hard to even manage our child’s school fees,” Radha said.
Putul Devi, a voter since 2008, praised the Nitish government’s women-focused welfare measures. “Nitish ji has already provided so many facilities for women. Recently, I also received Rs 10,000 (under the Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana), which I invested in farming. It will help us earn more,” she said.
A few meters away, a woman in her late 50s, who preferred not to be named, voiced a refrain that almost always follows when Bihar talks about the vikas under its nine-time CM: what next. “Nitish ji has built the roads and drainage systems, but when someone falls seriously ill in the family, we still have to travel outside the state,” she said, hastening to add that it didn’t mean she wasn’t hopeful. “Things are improving slowly. Earlier, we didn’t even have this much.”
Right across the city, at the Chhath Ghat in Bankipur, Shweta Singh, 46, spoke on the same lines. “When Nitish Ji says that earlier women wouldn’t step out after sunset, he is right. Once, I was robbed at gunpoint near Boring Road. But now, even children roam around safely late into the night,” she said. But, she added, it was time for more, touching a raw nerve that runs through the state, otherwise deeply divided along caste lines.
“Both my sons are studying engineering outside Bihar, one in Noida, another in Bengaluru. There are colleges here, but job prospects remain limited,” Shweta said.
About the Opposition and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav’s emphasis on jobs, Shweta was unconvinced. “I don’t trust Tejashwi’s promises. At least Nitish ji is trying and improving things one step at a time.”
Given that both Digha and Bankipur are NDA strongholds, this distrust of the Opposition is not unexpected. Before the 2008 delimitation, Digha and Bankipur were part of the Patna West constituency. The BJP has repeated its sitting MLAs – fielding Nitin Nabin from Bankipur, which he has won thrice since 2010, and Sanjeev Chaurasia, a two-term MLA, from Digha. The Digha seat was earlier represented by the JD(U)’s Poonam Devi from 2010 to 2015.
According to the latest voter rolls published after the Special Intensive Revision, Digha has the highest number of women voters in Patna – 2.17 lakh. In Bankipur, they number 1.78 lakh. This is significant as women are seen as loyal supporters of Nitish, drawn by his schemes since his first term. Overall, women make up 3.5 crore or nearly 50% of the total 7.42 voters in the state.
However, amidst the support for the NDA, there are those looking beyond Nitish at the Digha and Bankipur ghats. A 21-year-old student at Bankipur, a first-time voter, talked about how she moved from Patna University (PU) to Delhi University in 2023 in search of better opportunities.
“I enrolled in PU in 2022, but switched the next year. The teachers at PU are good, but the environment and resources lag behind. And the situation at PU is still better than at some other universities of Bihar, where a three-year graduation often stretches to five years,” she said. “In Delhi, there are far more opportunities, even for internships and vocational training.”
The 21-year-old admitted she didn’t have experience of the so-called ‘jungle raj’ of RJD chief Lalu Prasad, which the NDA keeps raising to warn voters. But, she added: “I can’t comment on something I haven’t seen. For us, the present matters more.”
The other Opposition figure that has caught her eye is the Jan Suraaj’s Prashant Kishor, whose message about jobs and education has resonated with youths like her. “Many young people are drawn to him. He’s new and might not form a government yet, but he represents a fresh option,” she said.
Headed back to Delhi for her classes, she regretted that she would miss voting. “If the election dates had been announced earlier, or if the voting was just a few days after Chhath (the polling dates are November 6 and 11), I would have booked my tickets accordingly.”
Back at Digha Ghat, Meena Devi, 65, regretted that people have forgotten what Lalu did for empowering marginalised communities. “Today, people from every caste worship together. That’s possible only because of Lalu ji. He gave a voice to those from the lower castes.”
About Nitish, she claimed her family had not benefited from his government’s welfare schemes. “Even to get the old-age pension, we have to run from one office to another.”
With her three sons all employed outside the state, at factories in Delhi and Punjab, Meena Devi said: “Here, only the educated manage to get government jobs, the rest have to migrate. The local MLA has never cared about employment generation.”
Would a woman MLA better represent women’s issues? “Maybe,” said Meena Devi. “At least just like women have joined the police, they should get opportunities in politics too, so we can approach them easily and our concerns reach those in power.”
The Mahagathbandhan is perhaps banking on this. Its candidates from Digha and Bankipur are both women – the CPI (M-L) Liberation’s Divya Gautam and the RJD’s Rekha Gupta, respectively.