Karakat Lok Sabha Elections 2024: NDA Candidate Upendra Kushwaha Holds the Advantage Despite Pawan Singh's Star Power

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With Bhojpuri star Pawan Singh's entry into the Karakat electoral fray at the cost of his membership of the BJP, what was to be a bipolar contest in the seat has turned into a three-cornered fight in this south Bihar seat. Despite the NDA parties not holding a single Assembly seat here, it is the alliance candidate Upendra Kushwaha who seems to have the advantage

The Karakat Lok Sabha constituency is one of 40 parliamentary constituencies in Bihar. It is a General category seat and comprises parts of Aurangabad and Rohtas districts. Six Assembly segments fall under the Karakat Lok Sabha seat, five of which are currently held by the RJD (Nokha, Dehri, Goh, Obra and Nabinagar) and one by the CPI(ML) Liberation (Karakat).

Polling Date — June 1, 2024; Phase 7

Sitting MP – Mahabali Singh (JD-U)

Candidates — Upendra Kushwaha (Rashtriya Lok Morcha), Rajaram Singh CPI(ML) Liberation, Pawan Singh (Independent)

Political Dynamics

With Bhojpuri star Pawan Singh’s entry into the Karakat electoral fray at the cost of his membership of the BJP, what was to be a bipolar contest in the seat has turned into a three-cornered fight in this south Bihar seat.
Despite the NDA parties, including BJP and JD-U, not holding a single Assembly seat that falls under the Karakat Lok Sabha constituency, it is the alliance candidate Upendra Kushwaha who seems to have the advantage.
NDA Banks on Kushwaha: In keeping with its seat-sharing deal in Bihar, the National Democratic Alliance’s nominee in Karakat is former Union minister and Rashtriya Lok Morcha chief Upendra Kushwaha.
Kushwaha had previously won the constituency in 2014 general elections, beating RJD’s Kanti Singh and JD-U’s Mahabali Singh, who was the sitting MP. Kushwaha had polled 42.90% vote share.
Tables were turned in 2019, however, with Mahabali Singh wresting the seat back for the JD-U, beating Kushwaha by 84,542 votes.
With the JD-U returning to the NDA fold, Mahabali Singh has had to give up the seat for Upendra Kushwaha.
Key Promises: During campaigning, Upendra Kushwaha has voiced concern over farmers of the constituency in particular and Bihar in general not getting minimum support price and being vulnerable to middlemen.
Like several BJP candidates across India, Kushwaha too is banking on the popularity and welfare schemes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Frosty Ties With Nitish: Kushwaha is known for his political acumen, but his political career was never stable nor was his relationship with off-again, on-again BJP ally Nitish Kumar.
As a Samata Party member, Kushwaha’s first election win was from Jandaha in Vaishali district in 2000. He soon became the trusted person of Nitish Kumar.
In 2004, the Samata Party merged into JD(U) and Nitish Kumar made him Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly.
As his ambitions soared, Kushwaha’s relationship with Nitish Kumar nose-dived. In 2007, he left the JD(U) and formed the Rashtriya Samata Party in 2009. After a humiliating loss in Lok Sabha elections, he returned to Nitish Kumar who sent him to the Rajya Sabha.
In 2013, he again quit the JD(U) over a dispute with Nitish Kumar on seat distribution. Kushwaha then formed the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) and joined the BJP-led NDA.
In 2014 general elections, during the Narendra Modi wave, the NDA gave Kushwaha’s party three seats, all of which the RLSP won. Upendra Kushwaha himself contested from two seats — Karakat and Ujiyarpur — and won both. He was made Minister of State for Human Resources.
Around that time, Nitish Kumar distanced himself from the Mahagathbandhan and joined the NDA. Upendra Kushwaha objected to the inclusion of Nitish Kumar in the alliance, but as his concerns were brushed aside, he resigned from the ministerial post.
He joined the Mahagathbandhan in 2019, but lost from Karakat and Ujiyarpur.
In the 2020 Bihar elections, he formed an alliance with AIMIM and BSP. He was the CM face of the alliance, but his party performed badly and lost all seats. He himself lost the Assembly polls in 2020.
In February this year, Kushwaha renamed his party to ‘Rashtriya Lok Manch’. With both now part of the NDA, Kushwaha and Nitish put up a show of unity on March 27. Sharing a photo on X, Kushwaha referred to Nitish as his “elder brother”.
The task of keeping the two leaders from falling out again falls to the BJP which would not want the Kurmi and Kushwaha voters to look outside the NDA.
Mahagathbandhan Challenge: As per the Mahagathbandhan seat-sharing, the Karakat seat is one of the three being contested by the CPI(ML) Liberation, which has fielded former MLA Rajaram Singh from this constituency.
Rajaram Singh, two-time MLA from Obra Assembly constituency in Aurangabad district, is also from the Kushwaha community.
The CPI(ML) Liberation has made recognition for Bhojpuri a major electoral plank in Bihar this time. It has questioned the alleged silence of NDA leaders in the state over the demand for inclusion of Bhojpuri in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution so that it can be accorded the status of an official language.
Notably, majority of voters in Arrah and Karakat Lok Sabha constituencies, where CPI (ML) Liberation candidates are contesting, are Bhojpuri-speaking.
Key Promises: In its election manifesto, the CPI (ML) Liberation has called for voting through ballot papers, abolition of the post of Governor, and right of voters to recall elected representatives, besides promising unemployment allowance and waiver of debts of farmers.
In the manifesto, the party further said defections must invite automatic cancellation of their memberships from elected bodies.
The party also said that rights to employment, nutrition, health and housing must be declared fundamental rights, the “discriminatory” CAA must be scrapped, and “any idea” of a Uniform Civil Code should be discarded.
The party also called for scrapping of Aadhaar and all biometric-linked identification cards, besides ensuring universal access to all welfare schemes.
Pawan Singh Disruption: What would have been a straight fight in Karakat is now a triangular jostle much to the displeasure of the BJP after Bhojpuri star Pawan Singh refused to withdraw his nomination from the Karakat seat.
The BJP had earlier offered the Asansol seat in West Bengal to Pawan Singh, a native of Bhojpur district in Bihar, but he refused and filed his nomination on May 9, 2024, to contest the election from Karakat.
Calling himself the ‘son of Bihar’, Singh paid no heed to public appeals from Union Minister RK Singh, who is seeking re-election from the neighboring Arrah seat, and Bihar minister Prem Kumar to withdraw his candidature against the official NDA nominee.
Apprehensive that his nomination might be rejected, Pawan Singh even got his mother Pratima Devi to file nomination as an Independent from the constituency. She, however, withdrew her nomination eventually even as her son remained in the fray.
The singer-turned-politician had reportedly sought a ticket from RJD before opting to contest independently.
On May 22, the BJP finally expelled the Bhojpuri superstar for “tarnishing the party’s image” by contesting the Lok Sabha polls “against an authorised NDA candidate”.
Singh, who appeared to take the development on the chin, came out with several cryptic posts on X. In one of the posts, he likened himself to the Mahabharata character Abhimanyu.
Key Promises: Hours after being expelled from the BJP, Pawan Singh released his 10-point manifesto for the Karakat Lok Sabha constituency.
His manifesto promises expanding new employment resources, promoting organic and modern agriculture, making proper arrangements for water collection, drinking water, and irrigation, building film industries etc.
Caste Factors: The Karakat Lok Sabha seat has around 3.5 lakh Kushwaha voters, 3 lakh Yadav voters, 2 lakh Rajputs and 2 lakh Gupta voters. Besides, there is a sizable number of voters from the Bhumihar, Dalit, Mahadalit and Kurmi communities.
Upendra Kushwaha is a prominent force in the Kushwaha Koeri community, which has around 7% voters in Bihar. Its numbers are higher than Kurmis, whose biggest leader is Nitish Kumar.
A professor of Political Science, he went by the name ‘Upendra Singh’ earlier. It was on Nitish Kumar’s advice that he picked ‘Kushwaha’ to portray a natural representation of the Kushwaha community.
The Kushwaha community has sizable population in districts like Rohtas, Kaimur, Bhojpur, Aurangabad, Khagaria, Nalanda, Munger, Samastipur, West Champaran and East Champaran.
In 2019, Upendra Kushwaha may have lost the election from Karakat but received more than 3 lakh votes.
Kushwahas form one half of the so-called Luv-Kush votes in Bihar, with ‘Luv’ referring to Kurmi votes. According to the latest Bihar caste survey, this segment accounts for 4.21% of Bihar’s population.
The Kurmi vote-bank remains loyal to the NDA, but pockets of the Kushwaha votes are seen leaning towards the Mahagathbandhan, which has fielded seven Kushwaha candidates overall in the state, including from Karakat.
The possibility of a stark split in Kushwaha votes is, however, remote since the community is known to hold meetings and sabhas before elections to decide on the consensus candidate to vote for. The community usually goes with the candidate of the same caste, irrespective of the party.
Singer Pawan Singh, meanwhile, belongs to an upper-caste community. But he enjoys a big fan following in the rural areas of Bhojpur, Rohtas, Aurangabad, and Kaimur.
Upper-caste voters are considered to be the core vote bank of the BJP. Pawan Singh may eat into this vote-bank to the disadvantage of NDA candidate Upendra Kushwaha.

Key Constituency Issues

Revival of Dalmianagar Industries: Dalmianagar in Rohtas district once had one of the oldest and biggest industrial set-ups in India, founded by industrialist Ramkrishna Dalmia, a doyen of business in 20th century India and founder of the Dalmia Group.
Factories here used to produce sugar, cement, paper, chemicals, vanaspati, etc. and was one of the largest employers of professionals in the country.
However, as fortunes of the Dalmia Group started to decline amid worsening law and order situation in the district, middle management employees and professionals started to leave and by 1984 factories began shutting down. By the 1990s, Dalmianagar was reduced to a ghost-town.
Locals have been demanding that the industrial town be restored to its former glory with corporate investments that focus on job and local wealth creation.
The lack of local jobs and employment opportunities has been setting the youth back by decades and forcing them to migrate in search of jobs.
Sand Mining: Much of the sand mining around Son River is said to be illegal. With jobs hard to come by, several youth have been roped into the activity which remains unregulated, dangerous and exploitative.
Locals say the MP and MLAs should be doing more to curb illegal mining and regulate it so the jobs created by sanctioned sand mining come with minimum wage and standard of employment guarantees.
Higher Education: Avenues for post-graduation in one’s preferred subject are hard to come by in this constituency with most higher education institutions offering just History degrees.
After completing graduation, youth are forced to relocated to Gaya or Arrah to pursue post-graduation.
Girls end up at a disadvantage as families are reluctant to send them to other cities for studies. Many either drop out or compromise on the subject.
Official Status for Bhojpuri: Bhojpuri is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand as well as in some parts of Nepal.
The demand to include Bhojpuri in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution so that it can be accorded the status of an official language is a long-pending one.
Majority of voters in the Karakat constituency are Bhojpuri-speaking.
Once a dialect or language is included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, it becomes eligible to be used in education, government and other official contexts.
Over the years, a section of linguists have opposed the demand, claiming the move would harm Hindi’s prospects.
Farmers’ Woes: Farmers in rice bowl states like Bihar, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have been demanding a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) of crops.
While the JD-U government in Bihar says it is committed to ensuring that farmers get MSP for their food grains, the Congress has claimed the abolition of the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act by the Bihar government in 2006 is the “single most important reason” for the distress faced by the farmers in the state.
The Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACES) put in place to replace the mandis have been a complete failure and have been simply unable to pay the MSP, the Congress has alleged.
Farmer groups and unions too say they are being forced to sell their produce at below MSP, and more often than not, it is distress sale.
Several farmer groups have also complained that the water meant for irrigation does not reach the tail-end areas of the canals since heavyweight and more influential MPs and MLAs of nearby constituency corner bulk of the supply for their areas.

Voter Demographics

SC — 21.34%
ST — 0.56%
Buddhist — 0.03%
Christian — 0.1%
Jain — 0.02%
Muslim — 9.75%
Sikh — 0.05%

Major Infra Projects in Karakat

Dehri-Rohtas Light Railway: The restoration of the Dehri-Rohtas Light Railway from Sasaram Junction to Tiura Pipradih was planned in 1999–2000.
As per new plan, the new BG Line was to be 81km with a 24-km connecting Deorikalan and Japla along a 2.7km bridge on the Son River.
However, the project was scrapped in 2004 due to lack of interest from the then Bihar government following the creation of Jharkhand.
Pillars of the abandoned bridge construction can still be viewed at Deorikalan today.
There are indications that the project may be restarted in 2024 in keeping with the demand of the locals.
Elevated RCC Bridge: In November 2022, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari inaugurated a 1.5 km long, 2-lane elevated RCC bridge near Panduka on Son river in Rohtas at a cost of Rs 210 crore.
With the construction of the bridge, NH-19 and NH-39 were directly connected, facilitating traffic between Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Previously, a distance of 150 km had to be covered to reach Srinagar from Panduka in Rohtas district and Garhwa district of Jharkhand. The construction of the bridge reportedly shaves off four hours from the journey time.
NTPC Unit in Nabinagar: In April 2021, state-owned NTPC commissioned the second unit of 660 MW of the Nabinagar Super Thermal Power Project.
Nabinagar Power is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NTPC.
Earlier, Nabinagar Power was a 50:50 joint venture between NTPC and Bihar State Power Holding Company.
The first unit of 1980 MW Nabinagar plant was commissioned in July 2019.
Adani Project: In December 2023, the Adani Group announced an additional investment of Rs 8,700 crore in Bihar in various sectors.
Part of the investment plan is to make paddy processing plants at Sasaram and Rohtas, expected to provide employment to 200 people in each district.