CPI(ML) eyes return to Parliament from Bihar
CPI(ML) national secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya with the party's Lok Sabha candidates and others in Patna.
On the back of its successful run in the 2020 Bihar Assembly election, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) is hoping that it will be able to re-enter Parliament from Bihar after a gap of nearly three decades.
The last time a CPI(ML) MP was elected from Bihar was in 1989, when Rameshwar Prasad won from Arrah. In the 2020
Assembly election, the party won 12 of the 19 seats it contested. Its hopes are buoyed by the fact that it is part of the larger Opposition alliance, the Rashtriya Janata Dal-led mahagathbandhan.
The CPI(ML) is contesting three Lok Sabha seats — Arrah, Nalanda and Karakat — which go to the polls on June 1. Arrah is the only seat where the party is pitted against the BJP. In Nalanda, it is facing the JD(U) and in Karakat, its candidate will take on the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party chief Upendra Kushwaha.
Shifting Kushwaha vote bank
If the Assembly election results were superimposed on the 2024 battle, the party will be best placed in the Karakat Lok Sabha constituency, as all its six Assembly segments are currently held by MLAs from the mahagathbandhan; ve with the RJD, and one with the CPI (ML).
In Bihar, where the voters are divided along caste lines, the CPI(ML) is banking not so much on the Assembly performance of the mahagathbandhan, but on its assessment that the Kushwaha vote bank — which in the last few elections, both Assembly and Lok Sabha, leant in favour of the BJP-led NDA — is shifting, especially in Karakat. Here, the battle lines are drawn between farmer leader Raja Ram Kushwaha of the CPI(ML) and Mr. Upendra Kushwaha, a BJP ally.
“With two Kushwaha leaders in the race, there was already a division in the Kushwaha vote bank, which plays a decisive role here. Mr. Raja Ram has an edge, since he has a better ground connection,” a senior CPI(ML) leader said. The equation has been further muddled for Mr. Upendra Kushwaha with the entry of Bhojpuri singer Pawan Singh into the fray. A signicant chunk of Rajput voters are expected to support Mr. Singh, further skewing the balance.
Mr. Raja Ram Kushwaha, though, wants to underplay the caste angle. “This is a ght to reclaim democracy,” he told The Hindu. “Yes, caste is important, but this is a far larger battle. The State machinery has been captured by a few and it is a contest to repossess it.”
CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya insists that the party is evenly placed in each of the three seats. In the Nalanda seat, for example, there is an accumulative anti-incumbency factor playing out against the sitting MP and the JD(U).
The CPI(ML) estimated that it has the strongest organisational presence in Arrah, but concedes that it will face an uphill task. Out of the seven Assembly segments, three are with the RJD and two with the CPI(ML). Despite RJD support, however, it could not pull o a win in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.