The Rupauli bypoll has been won by Independent candidate Shankar Singh, who defeated the ruling JD(U)’s Kaladhar Prasad Mandal by over 8000 votes. RJD candidate and former minister Bima Bharti, who had earlier won the seat thrice as a JD(U) nominee, lost by over 37,000 votes. While Singh is an upper caste Rajput leader, both Mandal and Bharti belong to the Gangota community, which is listed among the EBCs in the state.

Notably, Bharti had defected from the JD(U) to the RJD ahead of the Lok Sabha polls to contest from the Purnia parliamentary seat on the latter’s ticket, only to face defeat at the hands of another Independent, Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav. Bharti secured only about 27,000 votes against Pappu Yadav’s 5.67 lakh votes. Here too, the JD(U) stood second, losing the election by over 23,000 votes.

The Rupauli Assembly seat, which is part of the Purnea Lok Sabha constituency, is dominated by EBCs who make up more than 25% of the electorate as compared to Rajputs who account for just about 7% of the voters.

“The fact that RJD’s EBC candidate has twice faced humiliating defeats in the same region is evidence that EBCs continue to repose their faith in Nitish Kumar, who has carefully built this constituency. It is he (Nitish) who pushed through the caste survey that found the EBCs to be the biggest caste bloc in the state and accordingly hiked reservations. Yes, we have lost to an Independent, but the RJD is not even in contest,” a JD(U) leader from Bihar said.

A senior state RJD leader conceded the point and suggested that the tone had been set in Lok Sabha polls itself. “In a state where EBCs form the largest vote bloc which is up for grabs with Nitish Kumar in the twilight of his political innings, we effectively fielded only two EBC candidates in the Lok Sabha polls. Both lost miserably. We focused a lot on our traditional vote base of Yadavs and Muslims and tried to add Kushwahas by giving three tickets to the community. This probably did not enthuse EBC voters,” the leader said.

While the EBCs make up 36% of Bihar’s population, Kushwahas account for just about 4% of it.

In the Lok Sabha polls, the RJD had actually fielded three EBC candidates – in the Purnia, Supaul and Munger constituencies. However, the party’s Munger candidate Anita Devi Mahto was considered a Kurmi face among the local residents, as she was fielded by her husband and Kurmi leader Ashok Mahto, a convicted gangster, who married her just ahead of the polls.

According to the RJD leader, the party’s gamble on ally VIP, whom it gave three seats in the parliamentary polls in the hope of attracting EBC votes, did not pay off. Sources said the Mukesh Sahni-led VIP could only swing a section of Mallah votes in favour of the RJD.

The RJD leader made it clear that the party will have to broaden its social base in view of the Assembly polls.

Apart from the caste arithmetic, however, a key factor in Rupauli bypolls, sources said, was also Pappu Yadav. Despite being in the Congress, the Purnia strongman and MP has not had the best of relations with the RJD leadership for some time. Both the RJD and the Congress are key constituents of the Mahagathbandhan alliance in the state or the INDIA bloc at the national level.

Pappu Yadav had criticised the RJD’s “dynasty politics” in the past, whose leadership fiercely opposed allotment of the Congress ticket for him from Purnia. While the RJD fielded Bharti from the seat, Pappu Yadav was forced to contest as an Independent and emerged victorious. Sources said in the Rupauli bypoll, his support to the RJD candidate was “less than enthusiastic”.

In the Lok Sabha polls, while the ruling NDA maintained its supremacy in Bihar by winning 30 seats out of 40 – the BJP and the JD(U) won 12 seats each and the LJP(Ram Vilas) bagged five – as against the INDIA bloc’s 9 seats with the RJD and Congress getting four and three seats respectively while two seats were won by the CPI(ML)L.