No cakewalk for Chirag in Hajipur amid silent Paras play

A wiry Gunjan Kumar, 20, is out on the road at 8am. He usually returns home at 8 pm to share with 11 of his family members the 250-square feet double-storied four-room structure his father Suresh Das, 50, a daily wager, has built in instalments with great effort at Hajipur’s Masjid Chowk.

For the 12 hours that Gunjan is out, he spends most of the time meandering through the clogged roads of Hajipur, a satellite town of Patna, 20 kms to its north, on a battery-operated three-wheeler, known as ‘hawa-hawai’ in local parlance, picking up and dropping passengers on predetermined routes.

Gunjan earns barely ₹400 - ₹500 a day. Of this, he has to pay ₹300 as rental for the three-wheeler to his brother Umesh Kumar, 24, who bought it last year through a financing scheme.

His two elder brothers Pappu Kumar, 26, and Umesh are both drivers with a private firm working on contract in the Hajipur nagar parishad. The elder one drives a suction machine-mounted truck to clear blockages in sewer lines for which he gets ₹15,000 a month, while the younger one drives a garbage pick-up van for a monthly remuneration of ₹11,000.

“After paying the rental for the three-wheeler and spending ₹100 on tea and snacks during the day, I am left with nothing on most days after 12 hours of work almost six days a week,” says Gunjan.

Gunjan is a first-time voter, and will exercise his franchise on May 20, when the Hajipur parliamentary constituency goes to vote with four others during the fifth phase of Lok Sabha polls in Bihar.

“I will vote for a party which can give me employment,” says Gunjan, unsure if at all he can get a job, given that he has studied till class 6.

There are many others like Gunjan who aspire for jobs, but there aren’t any. Employment remains the biggest concern among the youth.

Gunjan is impressed by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and Bihar’s former deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav, who has promised jobs for the youth. He is, however, heckled by his father, who says he will throw him out of the house if he does not vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“A vote for Chirag Paswan (candidate of the Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas from Hajipur) is a vote for Modi,” says Suresh Das, Gunjan’s father.

Gunjan is not impressed. He says Chirag has divided his own family and ignored his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, the sitting MP from Hajipur.

“He (Chirag) has done nothing for us or the constituency. He is simply carrying the goodwill and legacy of his father the late Ram Vilas Paswan. Chirag is yet to visit any house in Hajipur, the headquarter town of Vasihali district, what to talk of other remote areas. He is either addressing public rallies, doing road shows or flying in chopper,” he says.

The “maalbhog” variety of banana, which Hajipur was famous for, is vanishing from the fields of Hajipur.

“Production of maalbhog is less than half of what it was two decades back,” said a scientist at the Banana Research Centre in the district.

“Despite being so close to state capital Patna, there has not been much development in Hajipur. Basic amenities are lacking. The roads are in a dilapidated condition and congested; waterlogging in the town is unabated since 2009, as drainage and sewerage projects are running behind schedule. Other than a district hospital, not much has been achieved in the health and education sector. For any medical emergencies, people still prefer going to Patna,” says Vikas Anand, 45, who runs Vaishali News, a social media channel.

He, however, says development is still not an issue in the constituency. “People still vote on caste lines, and many still vote in the name of Ram Vilas Paswan, who died in October 2020.”

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains the sole vote winner in the NDA. Paswan’s son Chirag is being seen as close to Modi, and people expect him to get a cabinet berth if the NDA returns to power. That may influence their choice, especially after the PM heaped praise on Chirag during an election rally in Hajipur on May 13,” says Anand.

“There are no issues... This election is Modi versus the rest,” said Rakesh Kumar Singh, an auto-rickshaw driver from Lalganj.

“People have seen Modi’s development. He has given free ration and gas connections to the poor... the Beti Bachao Beti Badhao campaign is successful and most importantly the country is safe,” said Pushpendra Kumar, an employee of RBS College at Dhanushi in Lalganj block.

There is, however, a lobby working against Chirag as well. Though Pashupati Paras continues to be in the NDA, he is sulking after being ignored by his nephew and the BJP.

“A two-time MP from Jamui, Chirag is contesting the Hajipur seat for the first time, ignoring his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, who was the sitting MP, defeating RJD’s Shiv Chandra Ram. Chirag has never stayed in Hajipur, and does not even have a house here. The one being made at Paswan Chowk remains incomplete for the last 5-6 years. Ram, Chirag’s rival now, is a local from Mahua in Vaishali district,” says Ravindra Singh, an engineer and a former state organisation secretary of the LJP (RV) before he and 21 others resigned from the party on April 3, protesting the distribution of tickets to “outsiders”, while ignoring party workers.

Singh and some other former party loyalists like Renu Kushwaha, Ajay Kushwaha, Satish Singh, Chitranjan Singh and Arun Singh, all of whom had held important posts in the LJP(RV), but were overlooked at the time of distribution of tickets, are now working against Paswan.

The caste equation in the constituency, Singh claimed, was in favour of the RJD candidate, dominated as it was with Yadav, Muslim, Ravidas and Sahni, which make for more than half of the nearly 19.53 lakh voters in this Lok Sabha costituency, and are believed to be the RJD’s vote base. A sizeable chunk of forward castes, including Bhumihars, Rajputs, Brahmins, and the Koeri and Kurmi among the other backward class (OBC), believed to be NDA voters, were split, and would vote for the RJD, he claimed.

Of the six assembly segments under the Hajipur parliamentary constituency, RJD had won three (Mahua, Raghopur and Mahnar) and Congress one (Raja Pakar) while the BJP won the Hajipur and Lalganj seats in the 2020 assembly elections.

RJD’s Ram is then being seen as the dark horse.

“Be prepared for a surprise,” says Gunjan, teasing his father that he would not get to know about his son’s choice on the EVM on May 20.