CPI (ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya and others release party manifesto in Patna. | Photo credit: PTI
He may have declared assets of just ₹37,000 and is contesting the Bihar elections with “small contributions of ₹10-20”, but the CPI(ML) liberation candidate from Arrah, Quyamuddin Ansari, is confident that he will defeat the “power of money” and “money lords” with the help of the people.
Arrah is one of the two assembly seats with the NDA in the Shahabad region of Bihar. Mr. Ansari lost against BJP’s Amarendra Pratap Singh in the 2020 polls by a margin of 3,000 votes.
The leader, who hails from the backward Muslim community of Pasmanda, says he is fighting the election with small donations from supporters. “Candidates in other parties have to pay money to fight elections. But here people support my campaign,” he said.
BJP fielded Sanjay Singh ‘Tiger’ from the seat this time.
The 50-year-old CPI(ML) leader entered politics as a student and has been an activist ever since. “I am from a poor, backward family. My father did not own any land. My wife is an Anganwadi worker,” said Mr. Ansari.
Taking a dig at the BJP and echoing the INDIA bloc’s ‘vote chori’ campaign, he said, “Our opponents are rich. The political party fighting against us is stealing votes. While on one side is the power of money, on the other side are people who make small contributions of ₹10-20. This time the money lords.”
Mr Ansari said wherever he goes, he spreads “the towel in front of people and they contribute”.
“They know that this party survives on their support,” he said, adding that people also “feed us and our supporters and also come to seek votes for me”.
This is Mr. Ansari’s third time competing from Arrah. He got around 5,000 votes in 2015 and narrowly lost in 2020. This time, he is confident that the NDA would not win a single seat in the Shahabad region.
“The people of Arrah do not see me as a defeated candidate. This time the people have decided to teach a lesson to vote stealers, job thieves, treasury thieves, land thieves,” he said.
The Shahabad region includes four districts – Bhojpur, Buxar, Rohtas and Kaimur. Together, that’s 22 assembly seats, of which the NDA won only two last time — Arrah and Barhara — with both going to the BJP.
Mr Ansari stressed that education and employment were the most important issues that the incumbent government had “failed” to address.
“It has been 20 years of the Nitish Kumar government. A child born when he came to power is now a youth looking for a job. This government has failed to provide employment,” he said.
He said employment was the main poll promise of the opposition alliance.
“We promised 10 million jobs in 2020 and Nitish Kumar made fun of it. But then he saw people’s anger and promised 19 million jobs. When we were in power for 17 months, we gave jobs to 5 million youth,” he said.
Published – 27 Oct 2025 20:23 IST
