Lalan Singh elected as JD-U national president to dent into BJP votebank

PATNA: In what appears to be a well calculated move, ruling JDU has attempted to dent into BJP’s major Bhumihar vote bank by elevating Munger MP Rajiv Rajan alias Lalan Singh as the national president of party.

Experts have opined that the with the selection of Singh as its national president, JD-U has not only played a masterstroke to dent into the BJP’s strong vote bank of Bhumihar caste but also brought a political strategist like Lalan Singh in party’s main decision-making position.

It is Lalan Singh, who was allegedly played an instrumental role in causing the split in LJP. And whenever party needed strategies to counter political opponents, Lalan Singh always has been proving reliable and successful to Nitish Kumar.

The elevation of Singh to JD-U national president has been done to compensate the party’s loss of seats in the 2020 assembly election with desertion of  major ratio of Bhumihar votes from the party. But some sources from party said that a section of party leaders, who have always been against Lalan Singh’s proximity with Nitish Kumar on caste lines, feel alienated and may resort to some silent political nuisances to bring Singh to size within the party.

Behind the solid electoral success of JD-U, the Bhumihar voters had played a major role going against RJD in earlier days.

The Bhumihar votebank, which constitutes more than 4.5 % of total electoral strength of state, had started distancing from JD-U after Nitish Kumar joined hand with the RJD and shifted towards BJP in a considerable ratio.

But in the last  5 years, the BJP has also annoyed and cornered the Bhumihar leaders even after getting a major electoral supports in the LS and the assembly elections.

And finally, 20% of total Bhumihar votes went in favour RJD, in 2020 assembly elections, which was not expected by the leaders both BJP and JD-U. The JD-U suffered worst with the distance of Bhumihar voters. Rajiv Ranjan Singh belongs to Bhumihar caste and holds an influential position among his caste people.

"JDU is now revving its old political equation by bring back Bhumihar, Koeri, Kurmi and extremely backward classes together in addition to minority and the major chunk of all caste women voters. If Nitish Kumar's social engineering succeeds, the JDU will bounce back as the state's first major party again in
2025 assembly elections”, Dr RK Verma, a political analyst said.

The BJP’s political game of luring the OBC and EBCs vote banks has also caused annoyance among the voters of both Bhumihar and Rajput-Bihar’s two dominating castes after Yadav.

Compared to BJP, JD-U is keeping some Bhumihar leaders on prime position like Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Shalani Mishra, Neeraj Singh, Dr Nitish Kumar Tantan and others.
“Even, JDU has made state chief of party’s upper caste cell, Dr Nitish Kumar Tantan, who belongs to Bhumihar caste.  After Bhumihar, Brahmin leaders are also projected