In Multi-Player Game Of Bihar's Buxar, A Former IPS Is Attracting Attention And Support—Ground Report

Young and educated Biharis interested in politics are often hit with one verbal sledgehammer: “You study so much just to do politics? Shame on you.”

Across various decades, Bihar’s demographic dividend was systematically used to crank up various movements, Naxalism and caste wars. All of them led to anarchies.

In 2024 though, a young Indian Police Service (IPS) officer named Anand Mishra is conveying to youngsters that politics is not as bad as their elders tell them. His rallies, often crossing through remote villages of the Buxar Lok Sabha constituency, are pulling youngsters in ways his rivals are struggling to comprehend.

Buxar is the last district and Lok Sabha constituency of Bihar. Crossing it from the north, you will touch the Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh. Varanasi is also very close to Buxar.

The Buxar Lok Sabha seat has six Vidhan Sabha constituencies namely - Brahampur, Buxar, Dumraon, Rajpur (reserved for SC), Ramgarh and Dinara.

Three out of six seats are held by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) while Congress and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (CPIML) hold sway over two and one seats respectively.

Interestingly, the equations of the Vidhan Sabha take a 180-degree turn in the general elections (GE).

Of the last seven GEs, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has emerged victorious in six. Lalmuni Chaubey won on four occasions between 1996 and 2004 while union minister Ashwini Choubey won from here in 2014 and 2019.

Choubey has not been given a ticket this time. The murmurs in Buxar are that he turned out to be unpopular in BJP’s pre-election surveys. Local feel that he has done more for Bhagalpur than Buxar.

“There was a park which was to be established here, but Choubey ji took it to Bhagalpur. He wants to develop a good reputation in Bhagalpur for launching his son” said Shyam Prasad of Panchfedwa village.

Choubey has been replaced by Mithilesh Tiwari.

Tiwari is a seasoned BJP politician who has been connected with the party from his days as a leader from Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BYJM). Later on, Tiwari also served as the general secretary of the Bihar BJP.

Tiwari tasted his first electoral success in 2015 when he was elected as member of legislative assembly (MLA) from Baikunthpur assembly segment of Gopalganj, his ancestral home.

Tiwari's base being Gopalganj, and not Buxar, is proving to be a significant deterrent for traditional supporters of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

To counter it, Tiwari comes highlights two points. One, being a reputed face in the party hierarchy. Two, his caste. Tiwari belongs to the Brahmin community and Buxar is one of the few constituencies in the country where Brahmins are in decisive position.

More than four lakh voters in Buxar are Brahmins. Yadavs are close second with 3.5 lakh votes. The M of Muslim-Yadav (M-Y) electoral equation is also around 1.5 lakh in numbers. Rajputs’ numbers are around 3 lakh while Bhumihars are around 2.5 lakhs.

If one goes by the established wisdom that Brahmins, Bhumihars and Rajputs tilt towards BJP, then Buxar should be cakewalk for the party.

Not so soon though. The RJD has fielded Sudhakar Singh, a Rajput and son of Jagada Nand Singh, one of the founding members of RJD and current state president of its Bihar unit.

Jagada Nand Singh is the only non-BJP MP from Buxar in the last 28 years. He emerged victorious from the constituency in 2009.

After he lost to Choubey in 2014 and 2019, the ticket has been transferred to his son Sudhakar Singh. Sudhakar is the current MLA from Ramgarh seat and an alumni of Kirori Mal College.

He is active in the education domain and also served as the agriculture minister in the state cabinet.

In the 2010 assembly election (AE), Sudhakar had joined BJP due to which his father had campaigned against him. This time around, there is no such dilemma for the father-son duo.

Strong family lineage and clean image are some of the positives Sudhakar Singh brings to the table.

The problem for him is that the RJD’s strongest and most loyal vote bank is at the risk of dissection. The possible dissector is Dadan Singh Yadav, also known as Dadan Pehelwan (wrestler).

Dadan is a former member of RJD, Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) and Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)).

His electoral record is a mix of high and low. In the 2004 GE, he emerged as a surprise second-runner up in Buxar. In the 2015 AE, he secured an MLA seat from Dumraon constituency.

Dadan has goodwill and social acceptance to his name in Buxar. It is true that goodwill does not always translate into votes but it does position him as a sort of decisive figure when it comes to guiding Yadav voters for choosing a candidate.

On the ground, his candidature has effected a loss of enthusiasm among RJD cadre.

“Would have been better if Pehelwan ji was fielded by RJD. What is the problem? He belongs to the Yadav community and Yadavs are the second biggest vote bank here. It is a shame that he has to contest as independent” said an RJD worker.

Dadan’s hold on Buxar constituency is something which even his rivals also accept. Despite that Dadan is not on the top of the topic of discussions in Buxar.

It is because another Independent, Anand Mishra, is contesting from this seat.

Mishra's candidacy has added significant interest to this seat, with its impact even reaching the upper echelons of the BJP.

Mishra, who hails from Shahpur in Buxar, completed his school and college education in Kolkata. Later, he qualified for IPS in 2011. With an impressive rank of 225, he secured the Assam cadre.

His Assam posting garnered name and fame for him - both online and offline. His no-nonsense and people-centric policing earned him respect among locals as well as people outside the state.

Mishra, who spent the major part of his IPS journey as Superintendent of Police (SP) in Assam's Lakhimpur, is hailed as an encounter specialist, and ‘Assam’s Singham’. For many he is the poster boy of anti-insurgency operations in the state.

He also enjoys a substantial social media following with 5.47 lakh Instagram followers at the time of writing.

Recently, he was appointed as an aide to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) tasked with investigating the resurgence of insurgency in Manipur.

According to Mishra, around 2017, he began to feel a growing desire to do more for people beyond policing. This led him to explore opportunities for grassroots involvement in his ancestral district of Buxar.

Through a local organization, Mishra and like-minded volunteers have been working in Buxar since then.

“You see this crowd today behind him. We have been seeing him for many years now. Everyone in Buxar knows him, especially the youth. BJP will realise its mistake on 4 June this year” says Ram Parvesh in Parsauna village.

Ram Parvesh was talking about BJP’s denial of ticket to Mishra.

Before the election, Mishra was in talks with the party for a ticket from Buxar. As speculation around denial of ticket to Ashwani Choubey started to float in local circles, Mishra’s on-ground initiatives of meeting and helping people gathered momentum.

It was understood that he had received approval from the BJP and would be prepared to proceed once he submitted his resignation letter. Reportedly, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma assured him of a senior position within the party. He also met with key figures in Delhi, including individuals closely associated with Home Minister Amit Shah.

Mishra failed to understand the differences between national and state politics. He realized too late that the top leadership of BJP's Bihar unit lacked accurate ground reports.

For example, when Assam Chief Minister campaigned in Buxar for BJP candidate Mithilesh Tiwari, he claimed that Tiwari's rallies featured chants of 'Jai Shree Ram,' which were absent from Mishra's rallies. "In fact, our rally begins and ends with 'Jai Shree Ram,'" Mishra countered.

Not fielded by the BJP, Mishra decided to contest an as an Independent.

Some came with financial support while others came with vehicles, microphones, creative team for campaign writing and management. Soon, a team of more than 5,000 volunteers was assembled.

The momentum quickly shifted in his favour.

Political cadre is quick to grasp this flow and hence the BJP unit of Buxar started to see outflow in large numbers. Mishra’s nomination itself had the presence of four former BJP Buxar unit chiefs. While Swarajya was observing his campaign on 27 May 2024, we saw workers erstwhile aligned with BJP flooding the campaign headquarter and rally.

“More than 60 per cent of BJP’s cadre is now with Anand Sir. The condition is such that the fight seems to be more between Sudhakar Singh [RJD] and Anand Sir, rather than between BJP and RJD” said Prateek, an enthusiastic young man at the rally.

What is working on ground in Mishra’s favour is that he has kept his campaign relatively low profile and village centric.

Majority of politicians in the name of campaigning for elections take their convoy from one place to another through the best roads of the city. Yes, they do touch every assembly constituency, but the reach out is mostly only surface-level.

There is very little of it in Mishra’s campaign.

Look at this chart of his schedule on 27 May.

The campaign has to cross 69 places in Buxar on the very day. All of these places are villages.

Barely 10 kilometres from the base location near Ambedkar chowk, the reality of development starts to look bleak. Roads are either not built well or they are poorly maintained. In any case, speedometer rarely touches the 30 kilometre per hour mark.

However, the rally which began with less than ten vehicles (four wheelers) is buttressed by the presence of dozens more within an hour.

At Mathiya, Swarajya asked Prem, a man with his bullet bike, whether he would get anything in return for all his efforts for Mishra's campaign.

“Aree, he would win, that is enough for me” came the reply.

Pointing towards Mishra who was waving from inside of the vehicle, he adds, “In this scorching 45 degree heat, he is standing and waving. I have seen rallies of many leaders. They sit in an AC car, stand up for two minutes and then sit again for half an hour”.

Standing near us, a gentleman in late 70s named Chunnu interrupted our conversation. He spoke on the look of Mishra. “You see his face? So young, so energetic. Would anyone believe that he has spent years eating dust in forest areas. This is the brightness of honesty. If elected he will work, that is for sure” said Chunnu.

Incidentally, a day before, Mithilesh Tiwari, Mishra’s BJP rival called him an ‘Urban Naxal’.

Mishra was quick to counter it. From his campaign vehicle, he shot a video invoking multiple national awards, including the Presidential award for his bravery. He also called Buxar as the land of the brave.

“This is an insult to every son of Buxar along with every uniformed person. Mithilesh Tiwari should publicly apologise for his poor thinking.” added Mishra.

His rivals seem to be aware of Mishra's popularity. A candidate with the same name, similar face structure, same haircut and similar scarf hung around his neck has allegedly been fielded by the BJP. On the electronic voting machine (EVM) list of candidates, his name is placed just above former IPS Mishra's.

Now instead of asking for votes in his name, Mishra asks people to press the button adjacent to his election symbol, apple.

In this multi-player contest, Buxar looks for set for a fascinating voting day.