Bhagalpur, Bihar: Here, in this dusty district in Bihar, notorious for arguably the worst instance of police brutality and the most violent communal clash in the country, a new political equation is emerging that could play a role in deciding not just who wins the election to the Lok Sabha from this constituency, but which party gets to form the government. 
The change has to do with the fracturing of the Muslim vote and also a breakdown, if only partial, of the community’s traditional alliance with the Yadavs of Bihar, a relationship that has ensured that Lalu Prasad remains a significant force in Bihar as well as the Centre.
The cause for this radical change is the development that this region has seen under the Nitish Kumar-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government that came to power in Bihar in 2005.
Development isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Bhagalpur.
It was here that in 1978, the police poured acid into the eyes of at least 31 undertrials. And it was here that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Muslims and Hindus repeatedly clashed in increasingly violent confrontations that coincided with the move to demolish the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh and build a temple there.
Deciding factor? (top) The busy Tilka Manjhi crossing in Bhagalpur. Rickshaw pullers say better roads have helped them make more rounds and so earn more; and (bottom) local singers campaign for the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Shahnawaz Hussain, who hopes to be re-elected on the development issue. Photographs by Utpal Bhaskar / Mint
On 6 December 1992, a mob of Hindu protesters did succeed in demolishing the mosque which they believe stands where a temple to Hindu God Ram, marking the place of his birth, once stood.
But it is development that Syed Shahnawaz Hussain is hoping will send him back to Parliament.
The 40-year-old Hussain, India’s former aviation minister during the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP-led NDA government, is seen by critics as a trophy Muslim in the BJP, a party that believes in Hindutva, or the Hindu way. But, here, in Bihar’s heartland, some Muslims also see him as the face of recent progress from which they have benefited.
“As compared to the development done in the last 50 years, Shahnawaz and Nitish have done a lot of work in the last two years, be it roads, healthcare or education,” says Imtiaz Hassan, a social worker in the district.
And that won’t just make Hussain’s job easier—he wasn’t as acceptable when he won the 2006 by-election from the constituency—but also have a bearing on which party accounts for the majority of the 40 representatives Bihar sends to the Lok Sabha.
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