Unmet promises, rising crime: Why Nalanda is slipping away from Nitish’s grip
Return to NDA, a rising crime graph, and unfulfilled promises to displaced villagers — Nalanda district has various reasons to be miffed with Nitish
Nitish Kumar’s iron grip over his fortress of Nalanda seems to be slipping, his Kurmi caste card notwithstanding. The Election Commission’s data of the last four assembly elections only confirms the JD(U)’s slow decline in the district — something resentful voices from the ground openly declare.
Nitish’s party now faces tougher contests in Nalanda, even in the areas that were once considered his unbeatable bastions. Though the JD(U) has still been winning the majority of the seats, the margins have been slender. From 21.17 per cent in 2005, when Nitish ended the RJD’s rule to begin his continuing tenure in the state, it went down to just 9.06 per cent in the last Assembly elections.
The decline has surely not eluded Nitish, who, unlike in the past, has devoted a lot of his energy to Nalanda constituencies during the ongoing election campaign. He has held back-to-back rallies in Bihar Sharif, Asthawan, Rahui, and Nalanda. Earlier, Nitish would rather devote his time to other districts, as Nalanda, with his solid voter base, would be rather a cakewalk for him.
The villagers of Visthapit have been hoping to get justice for their displacement for the past two decades since Nitish assumed the state’s control, but to no avail
Plight of the displaced
Take, for instance, Visthapit (literally meaning “displaced”) village in Rajgir — a seat reserved for Scheduled Castes where JD(U)’s Kaushal Kishore is up against CPI (ML) Liberation’s Bishwanath Chaudhary. Visthapit, a village of Harijans, has been loyal to Nitish and JD(U) so far. The villagers are primarily Dalits (Paswan) and economically backward classes (EBCs), besides the upper-caste Bhumihars.
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The village has two colonies—Visthapit-I and Visthapit-II—and the people here have been hoping to get justice for their displacement for the past two decades since Nitish assumed the state’s control. Now, they are a disillusioned lot, and the general mood in the village seems to be against the JD(U).
The village houses some 1,600 households, mostly Dalits, considered at the lowest rung of Bihar’s caste hierarchy. There are also some 35 Bhumihar households, around 400 Yadav (OBC) households, and a few Paswans (also Dalit). The villagers claim they include the population of “12 displaced villages” who have been voting for the JD(U) only to get their land back.
“Not anymore. It is enough. What have we got? Just fake promises,” said Sanjay Rajvanshi, a villager.
The Kurmi card
In Bihar’s caste rooted politics, Nitish has the caste advantage in Nalanda. The district’s seven assembly seats — Rajgir, Nalanda, Hilsa, Harnaut, Islampur, Asthawan, and Bihar Sharif — have over 50 per cent Kurmi population, a caste the chief minister belongs to. The caste, otherwise, has a share of 2.87 per cent in the state’s population, according to the Bihar government’s 2023 caste census.
Besides the dominant Kurmi (OBC) support in the district, Nitish’s JD(U) also enjoys the support of EBCs and even some Brahmins and Bhumihar backing. The party has even bagged Yadav and Muslims votes, which otherwise form the core support base of Lalu Prasad’s RJD.
But this time, there seems to be a disgruntled section of voters among EBCs, Dalits, and Brahmins, as well as the Kurmis, in Nalanda. And the reasons go beyond jobs and development.
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It is about Nitish’s ideology, his apparently “socialist” party that has allied with the right-wing BJP. In the last assembly polls, when JD(U) contested together with the RJD, it witnessed an average victory margin of 9.07 per cent, says EC data, which was more than the 7.64 per cent average victory margin in 2015.
From Jungle Raj to Angrez Raj
There are spotless roads all over Nalanda — reflecting the vast network of roads set up by the Nitish government across the state. However, the most downtrodden of the sections do not seem to have enjoyed the fruits of this development. At a stone’s throw from the world-class Nalanda University is a squalid settlement littered with animal dung and overflowing sewage.
In Harnaut’s Porai village, Pradeep Kumar from the Chandervanshi caste (EBC) is worried about the “increasing crime rate” under the Nitish government.
“People are being killed on village squares. It is like Angrez Raj (British rule) when people were killed to instil fear,” said Kumar, referring to the recent murder of Dularchand Yadav in Mokama while campaigning for Jan Suraaj Party’s Priya Priyadarshani. The JD(U)’s Mokama candidate and strongman Anant Singh has been arrested in the case.
Kumar pointed out the frequent jibes at RJD for its “jungle raj” in Bihar. “What is this rule now?” he remarked, indicating that the NDA rule has been equally bad.
Nalanda house the world-class Nalanda University and there are spotless roads all over the district — reflecting the vast network of roads set up by the Nitish government across the state. However, the most downtrodden of the sections do not seem to have enjoyed the fruits of this development
The Jan Suraaj factor
In Islampur, political-strategist turned politician Prashant Kishore’s Jan Suraaj Party’s candidate from Kurmi caste has set the stage for an interesting battle. It seems Jan Suraaj is all set to cut into JD(U)’s Kurmi votes here.
The constituency has a sizable Muslim population, followed by the Kurmis, Yadavs, and Dalits. The Muslims will be the deciding factor in this seat. With the Muslims seemingly aghast with Nitish for “joining hands with the BJP”, the battle has become tough for the JD(U).
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In the last election, the RJD had won the seat, with Rakesh Raushan defeating the JD(U)’s Chandrasen Prasad by 3,698 votes. This time, Raushan faces JD(U)’s Ruhel Ranjan.
A long-overdue anti-incumbency sentiment
Hilsa saw one of the closest contests in Bihar in 2020. The JD(U)’s Krishna Murari Sharan, also known as Prem Mukhiya, defeated the RJD’s Shakti Yadav by just 12 votes — the narrowest victory margin in the state. This time, the contest between JD(U) and RJD is also likely to be a close one.
In Nalanda, there is considerable resentment among Nitish’s supporters over candidate selection. Shravan Kumar, a close aide of Nitish and a seven-time MLA, is contesting the seat yet again. A segment of JD(U) supporters here calls them “bottleneck leaders” who “don’t speak about public welfare in assembly”.
“This time, a new face, probably a party worker, should have been given a chance,” said Shiv Kumar Pandey, a priest at Rajgir Bazaar.
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Pandey, a JD(U) supporter who is all praise for Nitish, is disgruntled with the local leaders who, he said, “don’t listen to the voices of their workers”.
‘Revolution’ on the wane?
A left turn from the main road in Harnaut leads to Nitish’s ancestral village Kalyan Bigha. With a hospital, an Industrial Training Institute, a higher secondary school, and a memorial built by Nitish in memory of his deceased parents and wife, the village looks sublime, with Nitish’s ancestral home next to the village temple.
Outside, a group of people sitting under a banyan tree are all praise for their “leader” Nitish, whom they term a “revolution”. “Had it not been for been Nitishji, it would have been all khandahar (ruins) in Nalanda. He changed the face of the district through a vast expanse of roads and facilities,” said Niranjan Singh, a villager.
The only worry at Nitish’s village is about who will lead the party after he retires.
