CALCUTTA, 5 May 2004 — Voters in Bhagalpur — where 1,200 Muslims were butchered — will decide the fate of another Modi today in the third and final phase of parliamentary elections in Bihar.
Bhagalpur’s 300,000 Muslim voters bristle with anger at the mention of the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate’s name — Sushil Modi. They are still haunted by memories of the large-scale killings of Muslims and destruction of their homes, mosques and businesses by Hindu mobs in 1989.
Sitting member of Parliament, Subodh Rai of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is banking on Muslim support and caste arithmetic to knock out debutante Modi and retain the seat.
Rai bagged the seat in 1999 polling 47. 94 percent of votes to defeat BJP’s Prabhash Chandra Tiwari. Tiwari, a Brahmin, had won the 1998 contest polling 44.6 percent of votes. The saffron party’s vote share rose from 20.45 percent in 1991 to 33.61 in 1996. Significantly, the anti-Muslim violence of 1989 when Congress was in power in Patna and New Delhi, became the catalyst of Muslim-Yadav alliance in Bihar catapulting Laloo Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal to power in the backward state.
The pogrom also put an end to Congress monopoly over the Bhagalpur seat since 1952 barring 1977. In post-pogrom elections of 1989, 1991 and 1996, Janata Dal’s Chun Chun Yadav won three times in a row.
He is in the fray this time as a Samajwadi Party candidate. Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded Pappu Khan. Rai’s major worry is that BSP and SP candidates might cut into the anti-BJP votes to Modi’s advantage.
Leaving nothing to chance, Rai roped in Marxist leaders like Sitaram Yechury and West Bengal Labor Minister Mohammed Amin to canvas for him in every corner of the sprawling constituency.
The RJD and Congress have thrown their full weight behind Rai in the spirit of opposition unity hammered out soon after parliamentary elections were announced.
But Modi too is not without supporters. Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani addressed election meetings in Bhagalpur to boost Modi’s prospects. And it seems Advani has swung a few votes in favor of Modi. Moreover, Modi has released a “vision document” for Bhagalpur, promising the moon to voters. But he is unnerved by the impact of the CPI(M)’s campaign focusing on the 2002 Gujarat carnages to remind secular Hindus and Muslims about the BJP’s sectarian agenda.
And the Gujarat massacres have touched a raw nerve in Bhagalpur which witnessed the worst anti-Muslim riots since independence until Narendra Modi’s Gujarat rewrote the record of shame.
The CPI(M) has pasted’ virtually every wall in Bhagalpur with posters of Qutubuddin Ansari — the face of the Gujarat pogrom. Ansari was photographed begging Hindu killers to spare him and his family.
