Bihar: Cliffhanger in Karakat, where a Bhojpuri star has upset traditional equations

Karakat (Bihar): In news since Bhojpuri superstar Pawan Singh threw his hat in the ring, Karakat Lok Sabha constituency in Bihar is witnessing a cliffhanger of a contest.

Banking on his star appeal, Singh, whose decision to contest as an Independent has led to expulsion from the BJP, is locked in a multi-cornered contest that promises a nail-biting finish.

Established in the delimitation of 2008, comprising three Assembly segments each of Rohtas and Aurangabad districts, Karakat has, so far, always voted for the BJP-led NDA, which is backing former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha this time. The INDIA bloc is represented by Raja Ram Singh Kushwaha, a former MLA of the CPI(ML) Liberation who had won the Obra seat in Aurangabad twice in the late 1990s when his party was struggling to hold its own.

As if the presence of Singh was not enough, the pitch has been queered further for NDA and INDIA with the entry in the fray of Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, which has fielded Priyanka Chaudhary, a local zila parishad member, in whose favour the Hyderabad MP recently campaigned.

Kushwaha had won the seat on his debut in 2014 and the feat earned him a berth in the Union Council of Ministers.

By the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, he was out of the NDA and ended up losing the seat to Mahabali Singh of JD(U), from whom he had wrested the constituency five years earlier.

Pawan Singh, who drew the biggest crowds among all candidates here while filing nomination papers, compares himself to “Abhimanyu” but hopes that, unlike the character from Mahabharata, he will emerge victorious from the labyrinth.

“I have a manifesto for Karakat, in which I share, among other things, my vision for promoting film-making and tourism, for which there is ample scope in this area full of hills, forests and waterfalls,” said Singh.