All eyes will be on Saran, which is among five constituencies in Bihar voting in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha polls on May 20 as sitting BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy takes on INDIA bloc's RJD represented by party supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav’s daughter Rohini Acharya this time round.
Acharya, 47, a doctor by qualification, made news when she donated a kidney to her ailing father.
She had moved to Singapore after marriage with her computer engineer husband, raising their two children instead of opting for a career.
Now she is entering the political arena determined to win the seat her father held once.
Rudy, 62, had made his debut in Lok Sabha in 1996 after winning the Chhapra seat, as Saran was known before the 2008 delimitation. Yadav won the seat in 2004 in a contest marred by large-scale electoral violence that had necessitated a repoll in the entire constituency.
Five years later, after an embarrassing defeat in Pataliputra, Yadav retained Saran, holding it till 2013, when conviction in a fodder scam case led to his disqualification and debarment from contesting polls.
In 2014, Rudy defeated Yadav’s wife Rabri Devi and five years later he got the better of Yadav’s elder son Tej Pratap Yadav's father-in-law Chandrika Roy.
So much so, Rudy also joked recently that his “name could enter record books for winning against the maximum number of members of one family."
Acharya is the sixth member of her family, and fourth among her siblings to enter politics, but she has demonstrated that she has what it takes to be a popular leader. Her courageous decision to donate a kidney to her father and her readiness to take to social media to support her family during any political crises back home has won her countless admirers.
There is a lot of curiosity in villages where she goes, with everyone eager to get a glimpse of Lalu’s ‘laadli’ as she is called, who did not hesitate to risk her life to save her father.
In public speeches, she has mentioned “sacrifices,” saying there is nothing she won’t be willing to do for her country and state.
Locals welcomed her in Saran when she arrived to win back for her father's party the seat from where he had begun his political journey as a young MP in 1977, riding high on the Janata Party wave.
In chaste Bhojpuri, she launched her speech with, "Raua sab ke gor laagatani (I prostrate before you all)," invoking the memory of legendary poet Bhikhari Thakur.
Despite being in the company of RJD's two biggest crowd pullers, her father and younger brother Tejashwi Yadav, Acharya confidently took on her adversary as she compared her father’s track record against his.
“My father got a rail wheel plant set up in Saran while he was the railway minister. The current MP (Rudy) had been the Union minister for skill development. He should tell us what he did for the youth here during his tenure," Acharya said, amid cheers from the crowds.
She also said Rudy, who holds a commercial pilot's licence, would be "hawa hawai," from the constituency once he was elected.
The BJP seems to have realised that its challenger here is no pushover, a reason why it ran a high-profile campaign in the constituency.
The filing of nomination papers was followed, immediately, by a rally of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, in an obvious bid to galvanize Rajput voters.
On paper, both parties look equally well-placed.
For Rudy it has been a see-saw battle. Though in 2019 he won by a comfortable margin of just under 95,000 votes, a year later, in the Vidhan Sabha polls, the RJD clawed back, grabbing four of the six assembly segments falling in the Lok Sabha constituency.
Other constituencies set for polls on Monday are Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur and Hajipur.
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