RJD MP Sudhakar Singh interview: ‘We were worse off in 2010, yet we came back strongly … Will bounce back again’ | Political Pulse News

We were in a worse situation in 2010, yet we came back strongly. We will bounce back again. Our problems are not very big; we will resolve them. The artificially created vote by the ruling party will burst like a bubble. We will rise stronger.

What went wrong?

Compared to 2010, two new factors were created this time by those in power. Through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a committed voter list was engineered. A large number of poor voters were removed from the rolls. The RJD and the Mahagathbandhan had to divert their entire energy to correcting these lists, leaving no time to campaign on the ruling alliance’s failures.

What is the evidence that only Opposition voters were systematically excluded? And RJD state president Jagdanand Singh on Monday alleged each EVM had 25,000 votes even before polling began and that the party still managed to win 25 seats. So what was it, EVM manipulation or voter list manipulation?

The evidence of voter manipulation is in the results. After all, we too know how many votes we have where. What Jagda ji said was in this context only. That, because of roll manipulation, the EVM gave an edge of 25,000 votes to the ruling party. In Maharashtra, they added new votes. Here, they achieved it through deletions.

What are the other reasons?

The government used state funds to transfer significant financial benefits directly to a big voter bloc, especially women. This created a new arithmetic that the results don’t yet visibly reflect. Women could be swayed at the last moment. This poses a new challenge: the state treasury is being used to lure voters. It will trigger a deep economic crisis. Essential long-term changes, such as improving education and industrialisation, will be pushed back. Bihar may become the poorest state in the country. The situation will worsen.

But you too promised Rs 2,500 to women. Why criticise only the NDA for it?

Our intention was to support those at the margins: families suffering due to migration and economic distress. We also had a budgeted plan for it. But what happened now was unchecked: the EC remained silent and did not ensure a level playing field. Nitish Kumar has been in power for 20 years. Why did he do this only two months before the elections?

Most of these schemes will shut down now. These were one-time payments, essentially election donations. Even big projects such as the Buxar–Bhagalpur Expressway have been dropped. Civil society must ask whether elections should be fought like this.

Despite aggressive outreach to EBC groups such as Mallahs and Taantis, the RJD couldn’t make inroads. What went wrong with your coalition strategy?

We should have secured 43–45% votes, but ended up with only 38%. Men voted for us, but women shifted towards them, because they received government money. This isn’t women’s empowerment; it’s manipulation. Women voted 8 percentage points more than men this time, and the ruling side benefitted from it. Our vote actually increased, but the shift among women prevented it from showing up. The question is: will the ruling party keep using government money to tilt elections?

Previously, the Model Code of Conduct was enforced early. Now announcements continue till the eve of polling.

Your campaign centred heavily on allegations of ‘vote chori’. Did that overshadow other issues and backfire?

The BJP did indulge in vote theft. Anti-incumbency voters were removed from the rolls through SIR. Had they remained, the outcome would have been different. This exercise happened during elections, when it should have been done earlier.

Also, we are not in politics merely to grab power. We are protectors of the Constitution and democracy. We could not have stayed silent. Otherwise, what would differentiate us from the BJP? Had we not intervened, they would have removed 20% voters. We stopped it at 8%.

The EC even challenged the Supreme Court by announcing elections on November 6, while the SC was to pronounce its verdict on November 7. The EC has defeated even the Supreme Court.

There seems to be a trust deficit among non-Yadav voters, shaped by memories of the 1990s. Why hasn’t the RJD overcome that legacy despite rebranding?

This is not entirely true. Data shows our base is 26–27% votes, but we get 38–39% votes. Yes, there is a gap of 2–3% that we haven’t been able to add. But the real factor this time was the shift of women due to government doles. Over the next two years, we will inform voters about what this government is doing.

As far as the “Jungle Raj” narrative is concerned, we don’t have an independent media. Many in the media are ideologically committed to the BJP–RSS. There is no basis for the image they create. Just look at the NCRB data to see under whose tenure crime levels rose. We gave voice to marginalised communities, we are being punished for that. The BJP’s corporate supporters have manufactured this perception through their channels.

But wasn’t law and order a big problem in the RJD years?

There was a Naxal movement in Bihar. Did it start during the RJD rule? It started in 1979. There was a raging, violent movement in Bihar between 1979 and 1989. And what happened in Bhagalpur in 1989? India witnessed its biggest communal riots after Independence (in Bhagalpur). So, this law-and-order problem that we talk about now, we actually got it as a legacy. In fact, it was under the RJD rule that both were neutralised. We controlled communal riots by 1995-96 and, by 2000, we finished Maoism in Bihar.  All of this was done through efficient management of law and order. We don’t get credit for it because the conventional media is against us.

Tejashwi Yadav was the face of the campaign. Did his messaging fail? Voters seemed not to believe the promise of one government job per family. Did this impact Tejashwi’s credibility?

Our manifesto had 100 announcements, and this was one among them. Some voters may have disagreed with it. Acceptance levels vary. But to say it affected our votes is not correct.

When we were in power, we gave jobs. Maybe we couldn’t give to everyone, but we would have given 25–50%. Modi ji promised Rs 15 lakh in every account: did he deliver? Yet his votes didn’t fall. Many of his promises remain unfulfilled, but he wins repeatedly. Meanwhile, per capita income in rural Bihar continues to fall.

The NDA seemed far more coordinated and began much earlier. You couldn’t stitch an alliance till nominations and fought each other on 12 seats.

The ruling side has enormous machinery to fix these matters: the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the CBI. This disrupts the Opposition’s functioning as well. If everything looked smooth in the NDA, it was because of the pressure of these agencies.

In the Opposition, we follow democratic processes where opinions differ. Yes, we could have done better. But the impact was negligible. We needed 122 seats; we were in a strong contest in 132. There are seats we cannot win even in favourable conditions. Those 12 “friendly fight” seats didn’t matter much because we didn’t expect to win them. That wasn’t a major concern. The BJP created this narrative of a rift in the Mahagathbandhan. There is no level playing field in propaganda. We lag behind the BJP on that front.