Begusarai, the once “Leningrad of Bihar”, had shed its red colour and turned saffron but the erstwhile Communist heartland could throw up a different hue in this election.
Like during every election, there’s anger among those who intend to vote. But this year, the rage is against those who have tried to paint sentiments and scepticism in similar shades.
Many are unhappy with Union home minister Amit Shah, who had recently commented at a public rally that Bihar was a victim of Naxalism because of the communists.
“Amit Shah does not know the difference between communism and naxalism because he lives in another world. My husband was a member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and was killed by the feudal forces for opposing their dominance. I had such a tough time raising three kids,” says Sobha Devi, 52, the mukhiya of Dariyapur panchayat in Begusarai.
A few kilometres away, Shankar Singh Samdarshi agrees with Sobha.
He believes that the home minister would never understand the meaning of struggle and what it means to “oppose oppression”. His father Ram Kishun Singh, a CPI worker, was shot dead in 1978 in the Sihma panchayat. “My father was killed because he had opposed the then ganglord, Kamdev Singh, a man so dreaded that people of the area would not dare to step out to vote,” Samdarshi says.
CPI leader Shatrughan Prasad Singh is guiding the party’s Begusarai campaign. Dev Raj
Shah’s Maoist comment has scratched open the old wounds of people feeling cheated, compromised and neglected for years.
“So many of our party members and leaders, including Matihani MLA Sitaram Mishra, laid down their lives, but we did not allow naxalism to rear its head. Connecting us with them is sheer foolishness,” stresses CPI Bihar secretary Ram Naresh Pandey.
On why this seat is called the “Leningrad of Bihar”, Pandey points out that major parts of Begusarai came under the now-extinguished Balia Lok Sabha constituency, which was a CPI stronghold. The party won four times since the seat came into being in 1977. “The Balia Lok Sabha constituency existed till the 2004 polls. Most of it is now part of Begusarai after the last delimitation. As far as Assembly elections are concerned, we always had four to five MLAs in Begusarai district. We still have two MLAs.
“But it is not just electoral success that counts. We have fought here against feudal atrocities since the 1950s. It is the people who started calling this area the ‘Leningrad of Bihar’ and ‘Mini Moscow’.”
The Communist heartland has had a history of bloodshed, as 150 CPI members
were killed and hundreds of others maimed in the last 50 years. Memorials in the name of the “martyrs” dot the constituency.
“Our history is of the struggle to settle the landless and the poor, to make them survive in this unequal society. We distributed 33,000 acres of surplus land of moneyed landlords in Begusarai. There are now settlements such as Rahul Nagar, Suraj Nagar on such lands and people are engaged in farming,” says senior CPI leader Shatrughan Prasad Singh, former MP from the erstwhile Balia seat, who is monitoring the party’s election campaign this year.
The Begusarai Lok Sabha seat has seven Assembly segments — Cheria Bariyarpur, Bachhwara, Matihani, Shahebpur Kamal, Begusarai, Bakhri, and Teghra. Among these, Bakhri and Teghra have CPI MLAs.
The CPI has won the Begusarai seat only once, in 1967. The Congress has won nine of the 17 elections but the BJP has taken control since 2014. Union minister Giriraj Singh is the incumbent MP trying to get re-elected this year.
With eroding influence and rising communal polarisation since the BJP’s rise, the Left also has to deal with caste equations. The constituency’s 21.9 lakh strong electorate is dominated by the (upper caste) Bhumihars (around 6.25 lakh voters). Barring twice, every winner in the past elections has been a Bhumihar.
For the first time, the CPI has nominated a non-Bhumihar, Awadhesh Kumar Rai, a three-term former MLA and a Yadav. There are around 2.75 lakh voters from the Yadav community, the second largest group after Bhumihars.
“This is a gamble to ensure that all castes vote for our party, which is a part of the INDIA bloc. This (nominating someone from a particular caste) is unfortunate but a reality in Bihar,” says a senior CPI leader.
But defeating Union minister Giriraj would be equivalent to moving mountains for the CPI considering he had dealt a crushing defeat to then party candidate, Kanhaiya Kumar, by bagging 6.92 lakh votes in one of the most keenly watched elections in 2019.
Begusarai votes on May 13
