It was the time ahead of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. The Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) were in an alliance, but the RJD quit the alliance at the last moment, deciding to contest the 2009 general election alone. At the time, senior RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh had urged Lalu Prasad Yadav to not break the alliance with Congress, but Lalu Prasad ignored his advice.
In that general election, the RJD fielded Abdul Bari Siddiqui from the Madhubani Lok Sabha seat, which used to be a stronghold of Congress and the Left. Congress once again gave the ticket to Dr Shakeel Ahmad, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) put up Hukmdev Narayan Yadav. This divided the Muslim vote, benefitting the BJP which registered a win from the seat. This was only the second time in India’s electoral history that BJP had won from Madhubani.
Earlier, it had won the seat in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections. But after the 2009 victory, BJP consolidated its position there and has been winning the seat ever since.
The current situation, however, has become such that the RJD cannot afford to sideline Congress.
After the two-week-long Voter Adhikar Yatra led by the Congress, the party now seems to have become indispensable for the RJD.
RJD Needs Congress
This is because the march seems to have infused new life into Congress cadres and supporters alike. Congress, which usually struggles to secure even 8–9 percent votes in Bihar, has its banners up at full mast this time with INC flags dominating the march, despite the presence of top leaders of other Grand Alliance parties.
A veteran leader from Madhubani, who has seen Congress rise and fall in Bihar and is currently in the socialist camp, concurs that the long march has revived the party in Bihar. Moreover, the kind of coordination seen between top leaders during the march is also visible on the ground between the workers of alliance parties.
“Congress grassroots workers, who had been inactive for years, have now become energised, they have woken up,” he said, requesting anonymity.
“For instance, the Bisfi Assembly seat, which went to BJP earlier because RJD’s Yadav voters turned away from Congress’ Muslim candidate, is now showing faith at the unity among alliance workers.”
Political analyst and journalist Ramakant Chandan believes that this march will give Congress three advantages.
“When Rahul Gandhi held the Bharat Jodo Yatra in South India, he reaped electoral benefits there. With the same thinking, he has done this march in Bihar, which has energised cadres. Secondly, RJD and other alliance parties accepted Congress’s initiative and joined this padyatra. And thirdly, the label that Congress was merely RJD’s sidekick has now been removed.”Ramakant Chandan, political analyst
Impact of Voter Fraud Fears
But the question remains: has Congress’s Voter Adhikar Yatra and the issue of voter fraud become equally popular among the masses?
Sanjay Baitha, a resident of Sitamarhi and originally a Janata Dal (United) (JDU) voter, also feels the 'Vote Chori' (vote theft) campaign was a success for the party on ground.
“People have come to believe that voter fraud is happening. With the voter list revisions and the way Rahul Gandhi is speaking about voting rights, the message is spreading among the poor and marginalised that their votes are being deleted.”Sanjay Baitha, Voter, Sitamarhi
A Panchayat representative, one of Baitha's concerns is that the rights of Panchayat heads and representatives have been curtailed under the present government.
“The Bihar government has stripped us of our powers. They have virtually ended Panchayati Raj. It would have been better if we had gone out to work elsewhere. Panchayat representatives are angry with the government because of this.”Sanjay Baitha, Voter
When The Quint asked if he was angry with the government and which party he would lean toward in the coming polls, Baitha replied that he might vote for RJD. But why not Congress? “RJD is the bigger party," he quipped.
Ravindra Paswan, a local CPIM (Liberation) leader from Nalanda district, said that the Yatra helped mobilise the voter fraud issues as well. “Voter fraud is happening. The living are being marked dead, and the dead shown alive. The same happened in my village. When we asked local officials, they couldn’t explain how living people got listed as dead. The government would have changed in 2020 itself, but the BJP-JDU manipulated the counting on many seats to inflate their votes. Rahul Gandhi’s march has strengthened the Grand Alliance, and it will help in the elections.”
Another voter, Mukesh Ram, resident of a more remote village in the same district and belonging to the Dalit community, however, had a different view.
“People in the village know nothing about voter fraud. They also don’t even know that someone from their own community has been made Bihar Congress president.”Mukesh Ram, Voter
Rahul in Bihar 8 Times in 12 Months
Gandhi started the Voter Adhikar Yatra on 17 August from Sasaram, Bihar. The rally passed through 28 districts and reached Gandhi Maidan on 31 August. From Gandhi Maidan in Patna, this padyatra symbolically concluded on 1 September at the foot of a statue of Dr Ambedkar, located on Bailey Road.
The nearly 1,200 km long march covered 40 Assembly constituencies. This may have been the first time that Rahul Gandhi spent more than two continuous weeks in Bihar.
This was possibly his seventh visit to Bihar in the past eight months. Because of his repeated tours, the atmosphere of the Congress office at Sadaqat Ashram in Patna has also changed. The office, which wore a deserted look earlier, has been buzzing with activity in recent months.
The yatra itself found tremendous enthusiasm for Gandhi as it passed through the districts. Children, elderly, women, and youth—all kinds of people were eager to get a glimpse of him and turned up in hordes.
They stood for hours on the roadside with party flags. The social media optics have also got a lot of traction. Videos of Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav riding a bullet motorcycle went viral on social media.
One of the viral moments from the march included the time when a youth broke through security and kissed Rahul Gandhi on the cheek, while at another place BJP workers waved black flags at him, to which Gandhi responded by inviting them over and offering chocolates.
Many participants in the march openly raised the issue of voter fraud. By Sunday evening, when the rally reached Gandhi Maidan, it was met with German tents that had been set up by party workers to accommodate the incoming crowd. A Congress leader said, “We had arranged lodging for 50,000 workers.”
“Congress had been dormant in Bihar for years, but Rahul Gandhi’s march has awakened it. We are now motivated and will contest the Bihar Assembly elections with full force. Rahul Gandhi ji has shown with evidence how BJP is engaging in voter fraud and wants to do the same in Bihar through the SIR (State Identity Register).”Mukesh Kumar, a Congress worker from Vaishali, said:
Despite the scorching sun, the march began at Gandhi Maidan’s Mahatma Gandhi statue at 1 pm with a garland offering. Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, and VIP party leader Mukesh Sahani rode in an open-top vehicle via SP Verma Road to Dak Bungalow Chowk, where the police stopped them, citing it as a restricted area.
At Dak Bungalow Chowk, the top leaders held a small public meeting and attacked the Modi government over voter fraud. After that, Rahul Gandhi and some leaders went to the Ambedkar statue, garlanded it, and the march concluded.
Amid enthused party workers, Congress, RJD, and CPI (ML) flags fluttered on the streets of Patna. Posters, banners, and decorative arches related to the march were displayed everywhere. But in Patna, the crowd consisted largely of dedicated workers of the Grand Alliance parties. Common people were hardly visible as spectators.
New Energy, Old Factionalism
The symbolic images from the march show Rahul Gandhi’s growing popularity, and Bihar Congress is trying to channel this popularity into re-energising its workers. But elections cannot be won on the popularity of just one leader. It is equally important to strengthen the party at the Panchayat and booth levels.
For decades, Bihar Congress has been absent from the grassroots, and as a result, it has consistently remained marginalised in electoral politics. But now, party leaders claim, the organisation is changing its functioning.
Speaking to The Quint, Congress leader Santosh Mishra said:
“The party has selected district presidents across the state, and new block presidents have also been appointed. Not just that, even at the booth level we have appointed leaders. In strong areas, we have placed two booth-level workers per booth, and their list has been submitted to the Election Commission. This is not something new; we have been working on it for the past year.”
A Congress leader, pointing to the reasons for the party’s weakness, said:
“There were many shortcomings. Being in an alliance, we could not contest in every district. This naturally lowered the morale of our workers in those districts. Until a party contests elections, it cannot become strong organisationally. For workers, elections are like a festival. Apart from that, internal infighting was widespread, and leaders from different social backgrounds were not adequately represented in the organisation.”
Another Congress leader admitted that new committees have been formed at district, block, and panchayat levels, and new BLAs have been appointed. But factionalism still persists within the party, which can adversely affect its electoral performance.
“Despite the new energy, local-level factionalism in the party is at its peak. Ending factionalism is the responsibility of local leaders, but they are not doing anything. If this factionalism is not resolved, even Rahul Gandhi’s best efforts may yield no substantial results, and the party will suffer in the elections,” the leader told The Quint on condition on anonymity.
Congress sources say that Rahul Gandhi’s active involvement in Bihar will continue even after the yatra, so that workers remain motivated.
As per a source, “Divisional rallies will be held, in which Rahul Gandhi will participate. This will be followed by a large rally at Gandhi Maidan, attended by Rahul Gandhi and other top leaders of alliance parties. Besides, worker conventions will be held in every constituency where Congress has won earlier.”
Will Ideological Realignment Bear Electoral Fruit?
It is worth noting that the Congress’ support base in Bihar historically came from Muslims, Dalits, and dominant upper castes. But over time, Muslims shifted towards RJD, upper castes moved to BJP, and Dalits split between RJD and JDU.
Congress has undergone an ideological realignment towards socialist thought of late. Rahul Gandhi now emphasises social justice to strengthen the party, which is also RJD’s central ideology. In the appointment of district and block presidents, Congress has kept social justice in mind. In many districts, where upper-caste leaders had long been district chiefs, they have been replaced with OBC and Dalit leaders. The party’s state president Rajesh Kumar, appointed in March this year, belongs to the Dalit Chamar community. This has also raised concerns that Congress might eat into RJD’s traditional vote base.
However, political analyst Mahendra Suman believes that Congress’s efforts will ultimately benefit RJD.
“In terms of mass base, CPI (ML) Liberation, CPI (M), and Congress are all small parties in Bihar. But Congress and the Left being part of the INDIA alliance will benefit RJD. Since Congress and the Left are now also talking about social justice, the anti-RJD, anti-Lalu, and anti-Yadav polarisation will weaken, and backward and Dalit communities will consolidate behind the Grand Alliance.”Mahendra Suman, Political analyst
At the same time, the edge Congress has gained within the Grand Alliance through this march could help it in seat-sharing negotiations. According to Congress sources, the party is planning to contest 50 seats in the state—20 fewer than the last election. But this time, Congress will demand seats where it is strong.
A party leader said, “We will not just take any random seat. We want seats where our winning prospects are higher.”
(This piece has been translated from Hindi to English by Baibhabi Hazra. Read the original piece here.)