Social justice minister faces tough fight

Lalan Paswan, the Janata Dal-United MLA from Chenari in the Sasaram parliamentary seat, joined the RJD just before the polls to throw his hat into the ring.

Trying to queer the pitch is Gandhi Azad, a Bahujan Samaj Party Rajya Sabha member who is in charge of the BSP in Bihar. He is making his maiden bid to enter the Lok Sabha from Sasaram, a constituency adjoining Uttar Pradesh where BSP supremo Mayawati holds sway.

Meira Kumar, a former member of the Indian Foreign Service, is the daughter of Babu Jagjivan Ram, the longest-serving Cabinet minister in independent India and an iconic figure for Dalits in north India through the early decades of the Republic.

A law graduate with a master's degree in English, Kumar is seen as a pro-active minister who crusaded for the legal right for aged parents to seek maintenance from their adult off-spring.

But allegations of neglecting her constituency have been flying thick and fast.

"She is a hardworking minister and her preoccupation with her job may have led some to draw the conclusion that she has neglected her constituency," feels a confidante wishing not to be named.

"Meiraji had won the seat in 2004 as the people were fed up with Muni Lal, who got elected on a BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) ticket in 1996, 1998 and 1991 and then never paid any attention to the constituency. Now she too has done the same. There is the anti-incumbency factor against her," says Avinash Chandra, a resident of Okhra.

In 1985 Kumar resigned from the IFS and contested a Lok Sabha by-election from Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh.

She won and came to Sasaram, which had sent her father to Parliament seven times since 1952 with the exception of 1957.

She, however, lost to the Janata Dal's Chhedi Paswan in 1989 and again in 1991.

Undaunted, she entered the Lok Sabha for a second time in 1996 from Delhi's Karol Bagh, the seat she retained in 1998, but lost to the BJP's Anita Arya in 1999.

The defeat saw her return to Sasaram in the last general election and she defeated Muni Lal, a retired IAS officer and former Union minister, by an imposing 258,000 votes.

Interestingly, Brahmins constitute the biggest chunk of over 200,000 votes in the Karahgar, Bhabhua and Chenari assembly segments.

The Dalit votes are likely to be sharply divided between Kumar and the BSP candidate.

The Paswans, another major Dalit caste in Bihar, locals feel, will back the RJD's Lalan Paswan, considering his party's alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP. But, a section of them may also vote for Muni Lal.

In a field of 16 candidates, Kumar's electoral fortune will largely depend on whether the Brahmins, at least a section of them, vote for Mayawati's party or remain loyal to BJP.