Jharkhand: guide to results

Published here
Ranchi, April 15

The BJP in Jharkhand will go into counting day confident that, on paper, it remains in contest in all 14 seats.

However, by making the elections all about itself - the party contested alone, and along with the JVM(P), is the only one to contest in all seats - the BJP state unit is flirting with the failure tag. Even one less than eight, which was the number of seats won in 2009, would have the panic bells going off.

Party leaders are confident of winning more than 10 seats. "We are guaranteed 12 seats. Giridih and Rajmahal are the two in which we are facing a tough contest," said BJP leader and MLA Raghubar Das. The Congress says it, along with alliance partner JMM, has a chance in eight constituencies. "I think we can win in Ranchi, Lohardaga, Hazaribagh, Dhanbad, Godda, Giridih, Rajmahal and Dumka," said state Congress General Secretary Shailesh Sinha.

There clearly cannot be a universe where both the BJP and Congress can go home happy. The confusion is evident in the exit poll results: NDTV thinks BJP will win 12 and leave the Congress only one, while Times Now estimates the Congress and JMM will win six. Both agree that former chief minister Madhu Kora's wife Geeta will win from Singhbhum.

Early warning could come from two constituencies - Giridih and Rajmahal, which both sides admit to be unknown territories. The BJP, in a "direct fight" with the JMM in both, knows winning the two will make it unstoppable. If the latter wins in Giridih, it will be a major blow for the BJP, whose incumbent MP won by 94,738 votes in 2009. It will also mean that the JMM votebank is robust, having withstood an assault from alliance partner Congress, whose leader Rajendra Prasad wanted the seat for his son. A JMM win will also mean the rise of a new Mahato leader in Jagarnath Mahato. That Rajmahal - and not Dumka - should be the barometer of Santhal Pargana is curious: BJP's victory hinges on adivasi votes in the constituency, which has a significant number of Muslims. The party hopes that former JMM leader Hemlal Murmu can get some tribal votes while hoping the RSS, which has been active in the area for about 25 years, can use the hype around Narendra Modi to rally Sanskritised adivasis.

However, even if the BJP completes a clean sweep, it may not be evidence enough of a pan-Jharkhand "Modi Wave": the difficult terrain, demographics and cultural differences in the state mean imposing a wave was always out of the question for the BJP. Even winning Dumka - stronghold of the JMM - may be interpreted as a Babulal Marandi effect, with the JVM(P) leader taking away JMM's votes, leading to a BJP victory.

However, there may be a Modi effect on view. The tribals remained largely disinterested in Narendra Modi - in fact, the Sarna Samiti, widely perceived to be moving towards the BJP, supported Congress candidates in Ranchi and Lohardaga. This has been used by the BJP in the Santhal Pargana to mobilise the non-tribal "diku" vote of the caste Hindus. The hype of a Wave was also used to activate cadres and banish disquiet - in Palamu and Hazaribagh, those dissenting against "outsider" candidates eventually fell in line to work for a Modi victory.

If the BJP candidates in Ranchi and Jamshedpur win, it could be evidence of a Modi Wave in these largely urban constituencies. These two constituencies are significant because the BJP was up against the wall in both places - Jamshedpur, where its candidate lost his deposit in a 2011 bye poll and whose incumbent MP is a very popular; Ranchi, where AJSU's Sudesh Mahto was poised to eat into BJP's Ram Tahal Choudhary's Mahato base.

The BJP also claims that the poll percentages going up in the state - from 50.97 in 2009 to 63.55 now - is because of a Modi Wave. While one cannot verify this claim yet, there remains the possibility that Muslims voted in large numbers too, by getting women to come out and vote. A BJP leader claimed caste Hindus had voted to counter that. "Only 52 per cent Muslims voted in Jamshedpur. The rest were women and youth coming out to vote for NaMo," he said, explaining how polling percentage went up from 51.12 in 2009 to 66.38 this time there.

Apart from Geeta Kora in Singhbhum, smaller parties stand a chance to spoil the BJP's party. The CPI (ML) Liberation has mobilised the dalits of Koderma effectively. In Khunti, no one really understands the impact of the alleged support extended by left wing extremist PLFI to Anosh Ekka.

Nitish and the Vikas Vote

That Nitish Kumar may not be rewarded for his good governance is one of the most perplexing issues to emerge out of Bihar this time. Though I definitely think there is an underpinning of caste, maybe there are esoteric issues at play here - as Shekhar Gupta seems to suggest, a Bihari craving for more. Even as I was working on this piece, the Times of India ran a story on it.

What gave me a lot of pleasure is the fact that after I finished it, I came across Gupta's and Sankarshan Thakur's pieces: the fact that such senior editors had looked at the same issue told me I was on the right track. I tend to agree with Thakur's piece more - the man's written a book on Nitish, goddammit - as it agrees with my worldview. However, Shekhar manages to catch a sense of what I was getting, too - people everywhere were telling me they wanted more. I put it down as quotes in my stories, but writing about what Shekhar tries to capture was beyond my brief. Also, is being aspirational a uniquely Bihari trait? Even Shekhar seems to agree how difficult it is to pin down this anti-Nitish feeling: "You need someone with much greater scholarship than I to explain this. Or maybe even a soil scientist."

Maybe we are all wrong. Maybe Nitish will emerge from this one giving the likes of me the middle finger. However, my concern - as with everything else that I have written during this election - is not losing or winning. I am merely looking at the factors at play, merely holding a wet finger in the air. However, whatever happens, most of us in the media would have missed one thing from Bihar this time: the question of what women want. With their husbands and brothers staring them down, I was not successful in this. I really hope some other reporter emerges with clues.

If Bihar is rejecting development politics - we may know for sure only after the 2015 assembly elections here - there are larger implications, of course. What does it mean for this post-liberalisation idea of vikas?

For the moment, the way I see it, both Narendra Modi as well as Nitish Kumar are poised to be foiled by caste in Bihar.



P.S. Friend and former colleague Vinay Sitapati too, has a piece on this today.

An edited version of the following was published here

Vaishali, May 6

You have to feel for Nitish Kumar. Statistics are testimony enough, but the people of the state have recognised that the JD(U) government has been good for them. This reporter is yet to come across someone who failed to reply in the affirmative; the trend is unlike the circumstances under which Sheila Dikshit had to leave Delhi: her voters seemed to have forgotten the massive infrastructural boost. Yet, the Bihari voter is refusing to vote for Kumar and his party this time.

So, some questions - however blunt - have to be asked: Is there no vote for development in Bihar? Is the Bihari electorate, which gave Lalu Prasad's "jungle raaj" 15 years, an ungrateful one?

The narrative that has gained currency is that the voters are poised to punish Kumar for his arrogance. However, scratch the surface a bit, and the complexity of the theory comes to the fore. "Because Nitish got arrogant. He was doing so well, but he had to go and anger the Yadavs. The police was told not to help us," Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, a Yadav voter who lives in the Hajipur Lok Sabha constituency. "He thought he could do it all on his own. We have to show him his rightful place," said Anirudh Kumar of the Teli caste who will vote in Vaishali, in reference to the JD(U) ending its alliance with the BJP.

So, Kumar clearly has multifaceted arrogance. Like almost everything in Bihar, it seems to be split along caste lines: the Yadav Theory of Kumar Arrogance clearly originates from Lalu Prasad, who in his speeches portrays Kumar as a shrewd operator who played a trick too many. The BJP's narrative has been that Nitish tried punching above his weight and should be taught a lesson for that.

Another theory is that the Extremely Backward Classes - a group that the Kumar government consolidated and the JD(U) considers a vote bank - identifies with Narendra Modi, who is from a caste of that standing. While it is something the BJP has been telling voters and journalists, there is scant evidence to prove it. This is mostly because the EBCs are consolidated only on paper - in the villages, they remain scattered with no unifying trait: Jai Narain Nishad is a Mallaah leader, not an EBC champion. In fact, the only two people who admitted they identified with Narendra Modi was a Teli - Anirudh, who said he liked the fact that Modi was from the "vaishya community" and Pankaj Kumar - a Bhumihar in Vaishali constituency who admitted he has a, "soft corner" for Modi. When the EBCs of Muzaffarpur district said they would vote for Modi, they explicitly said it was not because of his identity, but because of what he has promised to do. "My vote is for Narendra Modi. He said he will bring back black money.... I don't want a government that does not respond when soldiers' heads are cut off," said Fakeeri Sahni, a voter in Muzaffarpur.

Which begs the question - Why is the Bihari voter seemingly choosing Modi over Kumar for work the former only promises to do while ignoring the fact that the latter has been good for them over the past nine years? "Badlaav chaahiye," said Gautam Sahni, whose caste Mallaah falls in the EBC category and lives in the Vaishali constituency. The call for change is part of the BJP rhetoric - something that the party's leadership has customised here to mean the state government too.

According to Sahni, a graduate who organises tuition classes for school students, the government has done too much. "Why did he give reservation to women? Now, there are women netas, while their husbands sit at home. When it came to recruiting shiksha mitras, women got preference," he said. However, for him, the election boils down to one thing: "This is a Hindu-Musalmaan ladaayi. The Muslims are on one side, we are on the other."

As it turns out, Sahni's sister-in-law is a ward member - a direct beneficiary of the 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayats, which he opposes. "This government made so many laws for women. But then, do I sit where the rest of the village is sitting?" Renu Devi asks, not answering a question as to whether she still supports Nitish Kumar. With husband Sikander Sahni in the room, Devi's answers were limited to cryptic smiles. Whether the women of the backward castes, a constituency that the media does not talk to often, have exercised their free will in the polling booth is anyone's guess.

In some ways, the BJP's Kumar Arrogance Theory is right - the Bihar CM seems to be losing a leadership battle in which both Modi and Prasad have shown him his rightful place. If that is true, there is no better barometer than the Muslims, who have stood as one across the country against Narendra Modi's ambition: will they return to the JD(U) once the Modi mission is complete? "There is a case to renew Nitish Kumar's license," said Mohammad Javed, who lives in the Hajipur constituency, referring to a possible third term for the JD(U) government. "But will I vote for him in 2015? Let's see if he gives us a good candidate," he added.

Unlike what the Narendra Modi-heavy campaign of the BJP would have you believe, candidates do matter. To be precise, their castes do. With the BJP leaving by taking away the upper castes, the JD(U) is having to fend for itself with a bouquet of backward castes that are being lured with the promise of more development.

The grip of caste is so strong, one comes across many instances where people are torn by the choices they have to make. "Why can't the rest of Bihar vote for Nitish? We Yadavs cannot; he has troubled us so much, said Raghuvansh Singh of Hajipur. "No one in Bihar gives vote for work done," said Surendra Kumar Singh, a Bhumihar in Vaishali constituency. Singh, who himself will not vote for the JD(U), let his frustration spill at one point: "If only the Election Commission banned campaigning altogether. People would judge their leaders on work done," he said.

Pankaj Kumar, a very articulate youngster in Vaishali village of Vaishali district and a Bhumihar, probably put it best. "Itna se galti ka itne se sajja na milna chahiya tha [There shouldn't have to be such a harsh punishment for such a small error.]," he said, even as he indicated he wouldn't be voting for Nitish this time.

Kumar may have been crippled by the shocking Hindu-Muslim polarisation in the state and the caste divisions that followed, but in this frustration lies his hope. If he can keep the JD(U) together - the countryside is rife with rumours about Sharad Yadav's future - there could be a comeback waiting at the end of the next assembly elections. Having built his politics on the foundation laid by Lalu Prasad - who had to counter violent uppercaste hegemony with violence of his own - Kumar can afford to be non-confrontational, thus bringing together even the upper castes, unlike Prasad. "Look, he is not against us. The Chief Secretary and DGP are Bhumihars," said Surendra Singh of Vaishali.

The election as a personal emo trip

Election season came at a time of great personal and professional crisis for me. The companion of my every thought for the past year-odd was not around anymore; the wind in my sails was gone.

Election, then, became an excuse to launch myself mindlessly into the summer. There was no one to go home to, no one to reflect with at the end of the day. I didn't hear anyone telling me to take well-deserved-breaks at the end of long days in the sun. I packed a bag, and I left.

Lion capital at Vaishali, seen with a part of the Ananda stupa. If Modi contested from here,
I guess he would have claimed the Buddha called him. Fair enough.

It has been more than 45 days since that first trip. There have been a few one-day breaks in between, during which I spent planning the next day's journey. I must have gone numb at some point: I felt my joints ache for the first time on Friday, when all the reporting was done and the only job at hand was to file the last story. In the evening, as I took a walk around Patna's Gandhi Maidan, I realised I was scared of what lies ahead.

What I learned these 45 days should be fuel enough for a long journey. The first lesson was the most important and I have to thank a 2009 ethnographic study I was part of: I learned that, if I removed myself from the immediate concerns of winning and losing, I could actually learn quite a lot. That led to a near-obsessive effort to avoid predicting winners. The 2009 study was a booth-level one and even after talking to the booth's voters for more than a month, I wasn't able to predict how they would vote. Of late, I'm sure I came across as inadequate to many people who eagerly asked me to gaze at the crystal ball. Instead, I bored them by talking about the various factors at play in each constituency. I often pictured myself as standing in the middle of a milling crowd, wet finger in the air. While it obviously helped me laugh at myself, the image also kept me on track.

There were worrying moments, nothing more serious than the time I travelled with Aam Aadmi Party candidate Dayamani Barla and her supporters through the Khunti night after campaigning. I'd broken my own Standard Operating Procedure, which was to not travel with candidates in suspected left wing extremist areas. To add to it all, the People's Liberation Front of India were after Barla: if someone had flicked on the light inside the car, my white knuckles would have been on show. All of which makes Barla's and her supporters' efforts extraordinary. Later, as I traveled to Bihar's villages, I was shocked at the communal divide: people kept telling me it was normal during an election season, but I doubt things will just decide to go back to being the way they were when dawn breaks on May 17.

Hazaribagh, ahead of the Ram Navami procession. A float supposedly depicting Narendra Modi in the middle, outgoing MP Yashwant Sinha to his right and Sinha's son Jayant - the BJP candidate - to his left. I was deeply disturbed by the communalisation on show; that Jayant Sinha, who must have told me at least four times during out 20-minute-meeting that he studied in Harvard, would need something like to win.

There were moments of disgust, too. This section almost exclusively belongs to journalists - the man who asked a senior Jharkhand leader for money in front of me at the Jamshedpur airport, another in Palamu who advised me to ask for "travel expenses" when I meet an outgoing MP. I looked everywhere for Muslim, adivasi, dalit journalists, but found none. Maybe I looked in the wrong places, but what I saw also told me journalists' biases were out in public: I was in Dumka when Giriraj Singh made his go-to-Pakistan speech in adjacent Godda and couldn't find a reporter willing to share the footage. The NDTV clip online was only 43 seconds long and I correctly suspected the BJP would claim it was taken out of context. However, journalists who I knew had access to it refused to divulge contents. The same evening, I flipped regional Hindi channels to discover they were not reporting on the speech. Instead, there was a lot of righteous anger in studios about Nitin Gadkari's reported comments that, "Caste is in Bihar's DNA." Well, duh.

Sadness was everywhere. When Simon Marandi - since fired from the Hemant Soren cabinet - described the decay of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, I was almost moved to tears. Which was weird, because Simon is a particularly foul-mouthed man. I had been working on a speculative story on the end of the JMM in Dumka then. As I would realise, I was late to the party: JMM was already dead in an "End of History" way. It was quite shocking to see Shibu Soren being controlled by the people around him. They weren't letting the poor man talk.

Ram Vilas Bhagat (97) of Hajipur constituency, who says he was abducted an made to submit nomination papers against Ram Vilas Paswan by the local Yadav strongman. 

There was more sadness than anger in Dumka's Sikaripara police station on April 24 night, as news of the death of colleagues in a Maoist attack came in. It would turn to anger overnight, as the realisation that a suspected malicious nature of deployment by the Superintendent of Police himself had meant poorly trained policemen were on duty in high-risk areas. The Times of India's district correspondent Rajesh Pandey suggested we visit the district hospital that night and what I saw there destroyed whatever faith I had left in Jharkhand's leaders.

That the same night should be the source of astounding wonder should be written in the stars. At some point, as the death tolls kept going up, I looked up in frustration. And there they were, the stars. I could not take my eyes away: at some point, I'd forgotten to look at the stars.

Sunflowers, Supaul.
the sunflower/ that scorned lover/ refused to look/ as the sun went behind her back

However, I found time to stop and click the flowers in Bihar's Supaul. Sunflowers, yes - and I guess you can't smell them without being a pollen carrier and sneeze machine yourself - but that was a #win for sure. I guess it took little to make me happy this season. There was the Cherry Berry Ice Stick by Bihar's Sudha, for one. Essentially a rose milk popsicle topped with two cherries, it became a staple. Rose milk means memories, too - it was amma's treat every time we went to the Indian Coffee House in Chinnakkada together. There was the Santhali midnight service for Easter in Dumka, probably the most peaceful Christian service I've attended. Happiness was the realisation in Raxaul, Bihar that Nepal was across the road; happiness was getting to the room each evening to find the jeans had loosened a bit more around my waist.

The absence of election issues in Jharkhand was disturbing. I had this illuminating conversation with an aide to a political leader once. It was night and the young man, also staying at the same hotel, came over to my room. He wanted to know about Kerala. "What are the usual election issues in Kerala?" I didn't get the question, so told him there was no one set of issues all the time; people also look at candidates' performance, etc. He didn't get the point at all. "So whom do the Brahmins vote for?" Everyone, I said. He had got me so pissed, so when he asked, "What do the Brahmins of Kerala eat?" I said beef. Sent him on his way. I wouldn't be surprised if I see him occupy an important position in the state soon.

Bihar was fun. The sight of .303s was a welcome sight, for one: there were no commandos creating a secure perimeter, no need to worry at the sight of a break in the road and get out to check for landmines, no SOPs. On my second morning there, I was in a helicopter with Sharad Yadav. Evening found me in an open jeep with Pappu Yadav. I've written of Sharad Yadav elsewhere, but Pappu was quite, errr, charming. He had his way with people, who were tripping over each other to please him: the man was suffering from diarrhea, but ate from every plate kept before him. Bihar was fun also because of Prakash Jha, who let me tag along for almost a whole day while he campaigned as a JD(U) candidate in Raxaul. There were many anecdotes, many uses of the f-word and the man seemed genuinely interested in having serious political discussions.

I'm starting a Pappu Yadav Fans' Club.

From what I saw of the two states - and I didn't go to the Maoist areas of Bihar, mind you - Jharkhand's election campaign has lost intimacy. This may be largely due to security reasons, but Jharkhand's difficult terrain also has a say: end-to-end, Singhbhum constituency is about 200 km and cannot be physically covered by a candidate in 10 days. In Jharkhand, too many leaders were falling from the sky and there was a disconnect in what they were saying and what people wanted. In hindsight, this was probably one reason why the BJP failed to impose a ""wave" in the state. In Bihar, on the other hand, people seemed to be clued into political rhetoric - all across Muzaffarpur, people were using the metaphor of "roti palatna hai" to mean a change in government at the center and state. I believe this must have come from the BJP; a Narendra Modi speech, most likely.

There was hope in Saranda as the people of Tirilposi voted without having to worry about having their "hands chopped off" as a lot of villagers told me outside the polling booth. I don't really know whether the Maoists chopped off hands in the past for voting, but only a handful of residents had voted in the past 12 years or so. Though of a different kind, there was hope in the Bihar countryside - that Narendra Modi will secure borders, build roads, defeat the Maoists, bring about social change and teach the Muslims a lesson. I really hope the man realises the implications of what he has done.

A pleasant surprise in Muzaffarpur: Rupesh Kumar Kunwar (green jacket), an Independent candidate meets Akshay Verma (marigold garland) on the road. Verma's contesting as the candidate of a party he floated.
"We want good people to win from here. I am supporting you," Kunwar says.

Despite all the places visited, these 45 days were about the people. Journalists and well-wishers who set up meetings and introduced me to their contacts: my Bihar counterpart Santosh Singh, Prakash Pandey in Hazaribagh and Sanjay Soni in Madhepura, to name a few. Sub-editors in Delhi who had to plod through copies when I indulged the writer in me. Candidates who found time to talk despite knowing my reports won't get them even a vote. The people of Jharkhand who continued to be such impeccable hosts. Those in Bihar who became a target of my caste pilgrimages. Strangers in tea shops, village chowks and courtyards who sat down for a confessional - sharing their hopes, fears, even hatred - never knowing they were being conned into being a part of my therapeutic process.

At the end of it all, I now realise there were days when the thought of her didn't cross my mind.

Vaishali: Hindutva Wave Against Caste Seawall

Published here
Bettiah, May 7

There is a sense of looking through a microscope in Vaishali: the micro transactions of caste taking place all over Bihar are magnified here. However linear political parties may have wanted them to move, castes have behaved counter-intuitively, preferring to preserve themselves before worrying about the idea of a consolidated political community being imposed on them.

This is not to say there is no support for Narendra Modi in Vaishali: there is an overwhelming number of electors, especially upper caste, saying they want him to be the Prime Minister. However, the main battle is between three castes - Yadav, Rajput and Bhumihar - that do not see eye-to-eye, and two of them have been coming together of late to defeat a third.

There are four main candidates in Vaishali, which votes on May 12 - Raghuvansh Prasad Singh of the RJD, Rama Singh of the LJP which is in an alliance with the BJP, Vijay Sahni of the JD(U) and Independent candidate Annu Shukla. Conventional wisdom would say the RJD would get the Yadav votes while the BJP walks away with the Bhumihar and Rajput ones. However, RJD's Singh, who is seeking a sixth consecutive term, is a Rajput and Annu Shukla, Lalganj MLA, is a Bhumihar.

"We want Modi sarkar, but we also want Raghuvanshbabu," said Sekhar Singh of Dhanaiya in Paru block of Vaishali, going directly to the heart of the Rajput dilemma. RJD's Singh has won here since 1996 by bringing together the Yadavs and Rajputs. The constituency has always elected either Bhumihars and Rajputs, who, barring a few instances, refused to back the same candidate. "We Rajputs will not vote for a Bhumihar. If they want to, let them come and vote for us," said Chandrabhushan Singh of the same village, referring to the fact that the LJP's candidate is also a Rajput.

This is where the "Hindu unity" idea of the BJP breaks down. Vaishali is symptomatic of what has been observed all across Bihar - despite the BJP's projection of Narendra Modi, the local candidates and their castes matter. Most Bhumihars of Muzaffarpur are set to vote for Congress's Akhilesh Prasad Singh, a Bhumihar. The Mallaahs of Muzaffarpur will mostly vote BJP while most of those of Vaishali will stick with JD(U) - these parties have nominated Mallaah candidates in these constituencies. The Rajputs, out to defeat RJD's Rabri Devi in Chhapra, are rooting for Raghuvansh Singh in Vaishali.

The BJP's victory will depend on a precise definition of "most," when talking about the Bhumihar votes to Akhilesh Singh, for instance. Candidates for the major parties in each constituency are almost always from the most populous castes. The BJP will need its candidates to deliver their caste votes while hoping Narendra Modi can bring over a good number of voters from the opposing candidates' castes.

At Chainpura in Paru block, Anil Kumar Singh - a Rajput - said that his vote will be for Narendra Modi: "No one knows Rama Singh. We are voting for NaMo." However, Singh also does not rule out the possibility of the Rajputs voting for Annu Shukla to keep out the RJD. "If Rama Singh is going to lose, we BJP cadres will vote for Annu Shukla. If she wins, she will be going over to the BJP, after all," he said. Annu is the wife of Vijay Kumar "Munna" Shukla, a former JD(U) MLA currently serving a life sentence for murder. Her campaign material prominently features her husband, shown to be standing behind bars with palms folded. Two duo seem to have burnt their bridges with the JD(U).

"We forward castes want Modi, but at the end of the day, it is all about caste.... We will say "Modi, Modi," but finally we will all go and vote against Raghuvansh Singh," said Pankaj Kumar - a Bhumihar - of Vaishali village, which lends the district its name. "People from our caste advised Annu Shukla not to contest and to let NaMo win. But she has bad chamchas around her who will grow in importance if she contests. Now that she has decided to contest, I have no choice but to vote for her. It has become a question of astitva," said Kumar. Incidentally, Rakesh Kumar Singh - a Rajput - of Dhanaiya also said that voting for Raghuvansh Prasad is an issue of astitva - existence.

It is not that the Bhumihars hate Raghuvansh - called Brahmbaba for his bearded appearance and educational qualifications by the electorate here. "Whatever happens, he is in the constituency on Saturdays and Sundays. Even if we Bhumihars invite him to a function, he will come. However, he never comes here asking for votes. He should; maybe some of us will vote for him," said Surender Prasad Singh of Vaishali.

"When Modi builds a road, we will all benefit," said Shivji Singh, a Bhumihar, of Paru block's Suhasi. "My village has not seen development even after Nitish [Kumar, chief minister]. People are calling it a Maoist village now. The Bhumihars of Lalganj can vote for Annu Shukla, but everyone in my village wants Modi," he said.

However, mere vote transfers by adding raw caste numbers won't ensure victory. "We Bhumihars don't vote. My family has 16 electors; not more than four vote," said Vaishali's Surender Singh. These are villages which were once famous for booth captures. "We would just occupy the booth here and wouldn't let the Yadavs vote. They began voting after [former chief election commissioner] T.N. Seshan," said Pankaj Kumar of Vaishali.

The men consider women as being part of a backup plan, to be used in case they need additional votes. "The women used to stay at home on polling day even though the booth is adjacent to the village. Now, they have begun going on their own. This time, we will ensure all of them goes and votes for Modi," said Anil Singh of Chainpura. "Back in the day, the women never went. We would introduce ourselves to the officials at the booth and cast their votes, too. After EVMs came into being, we ask them to wait till the afternoon. If we sense our candidate is losing, vehicles are arranged to take them to vote," said Chandrabhushan Singh of Dhanaiya. There is a suspicion among men that women - especially from the OBC, mahadalit and EBC castes - will vote for the JD(U) to reward the Nitish Kumar government's pro-women policies. Whether their upper caste counterparts will follow suit is anyone's guess.

Reminding his audiences that he had arrested L.K. Advani during his 1990 Rath Yatra, Lalu Prasad has positioned himself to take credit if the BJP falls short of its targets in Bihar. While Prasad has been leading the charge, it is caste - the consciousness of which was awakened during the backward classes movement - against which the Modi wave has been lashing. "If it wasn't for these regional parties that split us according to the castes of their leaders, Modi wouldn't have had to work so hard," said Satyendra Prasad Singh - a Bhumihar - of Gokula in Paru block.