Bihar Congress chief Rajesh Ram faces a tough fight in Kutumba

Three weeks ago, when the Congress was still trying to arrive at a seat-sharing deal with its senior Grand Alliance partner, the RJD, the latter had spooked Ram by laying claim to the Kutumba seat. It was only after much haggling and some pleading that the Congress’ central leadership was able to prevail upon Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Yadav’s RJD to spare Kutumba for Ram.

The trade-off, however, wasn’t an easy one as it effectively closed the doors on further negotiations on five other seats where both parties eventually ended up fielding their respective candidates despite being allies.

Roadblocks in Kutumba

For Ram, however, while the challenge of facing a multi-pronged contest with the RJD also in the fray was put off, the past three weeks have thrown up fresh roadblocks in his re-election campaign. His personal appeals as well as those from the Congress to Tejashwi, the Grand Alliance’s chief ministerial candidate, for campaigning in Kutumba were ignored consistently triggering doubts among the RJD cadre in the constituency on whether or not it must rally behind Ram.

It was not until Saturday (November 8) that Tejashwi finally told Ram that he would address a public meeting in his support at Kutumba’s Babhandih village the following day before campaigning for the second phase of polling, due on November 11, draws to a close.

However, while Tejashwi’s scheduled rally in Kutumba just two days before polling is expected to bolster the Bihar Congress chief’s re-election campaign, there are still reasons enough to worry Ram.

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For the 53-year-old Dalit leader, this election has thrown up one paradox after another. His rise in station within the Congress from a little known first-term legislator in 2015 to the state party chief a decade later has coincided with allegations of poor leadership, as was evident when scores of Congress leaders across the state openly expressed their displeasure against him over ticket distribution for the polls.

Palpable anger

Within Kutumba, yet another paradox haunts Ram. Voters here seem at a loss finding fault with Ram’s ability to deliver development in the constituency.

If anything, the general sentiment in Kutumba seems to be that Ram has proved to be a rare MLA who ‘gets things done’. And yet, there is palpable anger against him with voters complaining that while their MLA got four bridges and 38 new roads made in the constituency, access to him that was once easy has now become a distant memory.

Vinod Kumar Singh, a Rajput resident of Kutumba, voices the frustration clearly. “It seems he doesn’t need our votes now. He hasn’t seen us for the last 10 years. Is that arrogance? Is he ignoring us?” asked Vinod. “We voted for him, yet he never picked up the phone or met us when we asked,” he added, while highlighting, in the same breath, the four bridges and 38 roads Ram delivered to the constituency.

Another local, Dhananjay Singh, echoed the sentiment: “Here is a politician whom people throng to meet and yet he doesn’t want to meet them.” At Saraibar village, Surinder Singh remained appreciative of Ram’s development record but again referred to the disconnect with his voters.

“There is no match for his work,” said Surinder but he also added that "the way he behaves is different now.”

Upper castes peeved

In the discordant voices of Surinder, Dhananjay and Vinod, there is also a glimpse of another challenge for Ram. All three Kutumba voters, unrelated and unknown to each other, belong to the upper caste Rajput community, which constitutes nearly 10 per cent of the constituency’s electorate. Is the displeasure with Ram also an indication of caste fault-lines and shifting allegiances?

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Some believed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s repeated claims about Bihar’s “90 per cent population” comprising backward caste, Dalits, tribals and religious minorities being deprived of their share in power and state’s resources due to the stranglehold of the “10 per cent” that constitute the upper castes has irked Rajput voters in Kutumba. If true, Ram has an obvious problem at hand.

Reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates, the electorate in Kutumba constitutes 40 per cent Dalits (a bulk of them from Ram’s own Ravidas sub-caste), the backward caste Kushwahas stand at roughly 12 per cent, the Rajputs at about 10 per cent and the Muslims account for around 8 per cent of the voting population.

Fissures in Dalit voter base

Given that the seat is reserved for Dalits, a fragmentation in the 40 per cent Dalit votes between candidates from the two dominant alliances, the ruling NDA and the Opposition’s Grand Alliance, as well as any other nominee in the race – the current contest has 11 candidates in the fray, including those from Prashant Kishor’s fledgling Jan Suraaj – is inevitable.

Ram, said locals, had won the past two elections comfortably against his NDA rival from Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) because he was able to consolidate a larger chunk of Dalit votes coupled with votes of backward communities like Kushwahas and Yadavs as well as the Muslims.

This time round, there are fissures visible even within Ram’s base among the Dalits. In Bumru village, locals speak of the irrigation system being left “bhagwan bharose (at God’s mercy)” and their agricultural activity further crippled by recurring spells of drought.

The Kushwahas, Kutumba locals said, would rally behind Ram, unlike other parts of the state where the community invariably backs the NDA because of chief minister Nitish Kumar’s hold over it, as he had helped the community fight for its land rights against the upper caste Rajputs in the past. While this should have made Rajputs wary of Ram to begin with, it was not so.

Shaky prospects

In a state where success in electoral politics often depends on a candidate’s ability to balance caste arithmetic, Ram had succeeded in winning over Rajput support with help from the late Rajendra Prasad Singh, a Rajput leader and multiple-term Congress MLA from the Bermo constituency in neighbouring Jharkhand’s Bokaro district that shares a border with Kutumba.

Rajendra Prasad passed away in May 2020 and though his son, Kumar Jaimangal, has been the Bermo MLA since, he doesn’t command the same influence over Kutumba’s Rajputs as his father once did. As such, Ram has to now rely on his own ability to sway his constituency’s Rajputs; something he has evidently been struggling with this election season.

Managing Rajputs isn’t the only task at hand for Ram.

The Bihar Congress chief’s other pillar of support, Kutumba’s Kushwahas, too seem to be wavering this election – in part because of a visibly greater consolidation of the community behind chief minister Nitish Kumar this election season and in part due to the BJP hinting that its deputy CM, Samrat Chaudhary, also a Kushwaha, could replace Nitish as CM if such a possibility presented itself when the poll results are announced.

Sources in the Congress camp too conceded that Ram’s victory prospects are shaky. An internal assessment report, compiled by the Congress’s election war room, has reportedly flagged a slip in Rajput and Kushwaha support for Ram in Kutumba. Adding to Ram’s already growing list of troubles is the fact that his principal challenger this time round isn’t a lightweight like his previous two outings at the hustings.

The Bihar Congress chief is up against Lalan Ram, a former JD-U MLA from Kutumba, who is contesting the current election as a HAM candidate. Irony strikes Ram here again.

In the 2020 elections, Ram’s victory from Kutumba was made easier by Lalan Ram, who had contested that election as an independent and finished third polling an impressive 20433 votes against the Kutumba MLA’s closest rival and HAM candidate Sharwan Kumar’s 34169 votes. Additionally, Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party had contested the previous polls solo and its candidate in Kutumba had polled over 11000 votes.

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With Lalan Ram now contesting as the official NDA candidate and Paswan’s party remaining within the ruling alliance, thus not fielding a separate candidate against the HAM nominee, the Bihar Congress chief is up against the combined might of the BJP-HAM-LJP-Ramvilas and JD-U cadre in Kutumba.

While Ram’s personal performance remains strong on infrastructure, the political optics are turning. His bridges and roads are cited as proof of delivery—but delivery alone may no longer secure victory he desires.

For the Congress, the anxiety is real. The party is now hoping that Tejashwi, when he arrives in Kutumba on Sunday, will be able to whip up support for Ram.