Various parties are harping on songs to lure voters in the Bihar polls, while the blame-game continues on the backdrop of the country emerging from lockdown. The unprecedented series of lockdowns had triggered large scale reverse migration from metropolitan cities to Bihar and other states which provide a large number of workers for cities in various unorganized sectors of the economy.

Recently, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) released its Bihar election campaign song-Tejaswi Tay Hai. The party claims that this video-song is the beginning of making Bihar stand back on its feet after the state has seen the reverse-migration and the suffering of labourers during the COVID 19 pandemic. They also asserted that they would make sure to provide 10 lakh jobs to the youth if Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) is voted to power in Patna. The party is focusing on its efforts to bring public attention towards the increasing crime, unemployed youth, and the failure of Nitish Kumar, with its leaders stating that the last 15 years belong to a  Black period highlighted through its poll song promoting  Tejashwi Yadav.

One day after RJD, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had launched its video campaign for the Bihar assembly elections under the name of “Bihar Maa Ee Ba” in a way to give a reply to the Bollywood actor Manoj Bajpayee’s song ‘Mumbai Ma Ka Ba’. In the BJP’s video campaign, the work done under the NDA regime is being showcased as a response to questions raised by Bhojpuri singer Neha Singh Rathore through the song popularized by Bajpayee -‘Bihar me ka ba’. This song sung by Neha Rathore describes various issues in Bihar like migration, handling of Covid-19, broken-down educational infrastructure and others. The developmental works that the JD(U) and RJD have done till now in the state during the rules of Nitish Kumar and Lalu-Rabri were questioned in the song ‘Bihar me ka ba’. The song shared and popularized by Manoj Bajpayee posed serious questions about corruption, problems faced by honest officers, scams, crimes, and other problems present in Bihar. Its presentation in the form of a rap song had triggered a poster war among the parties contesting in Bihar polls.

Many migrants had returned to Bihar facing numerous adversities including existential threats in the month of May. Over two-thirds of the households reported complete loss of income due to the lockdown and said that they had finances that are sufficient for only less than a month. Most of the workers are still struggling for survival as they have no source of income or livelihood after being rendered jobless in big cities and industrial towns during the lockdown. In the current situation nearly 300,000 migrant workers who have returned, have registered in Bihar as voters in 38 districts of the state. As per the data shared with the ECI by the state’s disaster management department, nearly 1.88 million migrants had returned to the state, and around 1.66 million of them are eligible to vote as they are aged over 18 years. Bihar is among the few states where the women voters are higher in number than men since the 2005 assembly polls. Hence, there is also a special focus on getting women among the returning migrants to vote. The Election Commission of India hopes that this will help the state breach the 60% mark as the gender gap among the voters has closed to 898 as on this date from 875 in 2015.

The increased number of voters after the reverse migration and the higher number of women voters would definitely be decisive in the upcoming Bihar polls, which the parties are trying to turn in their own favour through various means including posters and songs.

The author is a student member of Amity Centre of Happiness.