October 25, 2020 11:50:22 am
While Singh is said to have considerable influence among Rajput voters in Central Bihar, his prominence in the RJD is attributed more to his unwavering loyalty to the Lalu family.
In November last year, the RJD took everyone by surprise when it named 74-year-old Jagadanand Singh, a Rajput, as its state president. It was the first time in the party’s 23-year history that a upper caste politician had been appointed your boss Bihar.
The decision was based both on the RJD’s intention to reshape the game’s image of a Yadav-dominated OBC team, as well as the family’s desire to have a loyal veteran by Tejashwi side as it faces the NDA for the second. time without the charismatic father Lalu Prasad.
A product of the socialist political movement, Jagada Babu, as he is popularly known in Bihar, is one of the founding members of the RJD and has represented the Ramgarh constituency in Central Bihar several times as an MLA. He remained a minister for most of the Lalu regime.
In 2009, Singh contested the Buxar Lok Sabha seat on an RJD ticket and defeated BJP’s Lal Muni Choubey by just over 2,000 seats. The most popular leader in that region at the time, Choubey had not lost to Buxar since 1996. The seat was reclaimed by the BJP in 2014 and retained in 2019, with Singh losing both times.
While Singh is said to have considerable influence among Rajput voters in Central Bihar, his prominence in the RJD is attributed more to his unwavering loyalty to the Lalu family. Sources say that it was Lalu himself who suggested Singh’s name for the post of state president and was quickly approved by everyone in the family.
As a tall but calm leader, Singh has always won the family’s affection. Unlike the other influential Rajput leader in the party, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who left the RJD days before his death recently, Singh has never spoken or challenged Lalu. Also, although Raghuvansh was nationally oriented in his politics, Singh has been happy to stay in the state.
He sealed the palace’s trust in him when in 1997 he proposed to the family to appoint Rabri Devi as chief minister after Lalu resigned on charges of forage scam. Another sign of his loyalty came when, in a 2010 Assembly bypoll, he campaigned against his own son Sudhakar in his Ramgarh stronghold and secured his defeat to Ambika Yadav of the RJD. Sudhakar had accepted a BJP ticket after the RJD ignored him for the seat. This time, by the way, Sudhakar is Ramgarh’s RJD candidate.
“Jagada Babu may not be a pan-Bihar mass leader, but he has a good political mind. He is also a tough and disciplined leader. So since he took over the reins of the party in Bihar, things have become a bit more systematic and the approach to the polls is more coordinated. It is also very logical and difficult to argue even if you don’t agree with it. Letting workers know that he has the weight of the first family behind him helps, ”says a senior RJD leader.
The RJD also hopes Singh’s appointment will send the message that he is not against the upper castes. In the run-up to the 2019 elections, the RJD’s vocal opposition to the EWS 10% quota for the upper castes was seen to backfire. The NDA had swept the state at the time, winning 39 of the 40 seats (Congress had won the remainder). Since Nitish Kumar has appropriated the extremely backward classes, the RJD sees the upper castes as a vote bank that it can leverage to expand its social base beyond the Yadavs and Muslims.
“Let’s also not forget that Jagada Babu was the de facto CM during the RJD regime when Lalu was absent for several years. The family wants a loyal veteran to guide Tejashwi in a contest that seems closer and closer, ”says an RJD leader.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
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