Yadav vs Yadav in flood-prone Madhepura

Madhepura, the 'Yadavland of Bihar', where only Yadav candidates have won since 1968, faces another election battle.

It’s a typical April day: the sun blazes out of a blank sky and scorching heat hammers the earth, leaving the roads deserted, silencing even the birds. The bare-chested Magan Yadav of Bhelwa-Ramnagar village in the Madhepura Lok Sabha constituency is busy chopping fodder for his three buffaloes, which are tied tightly in a thatched enclosure. Some things never change.

“Only Yadavs win from Madhepura seat and it will be the same this time as well, whether it’s the incumbent sitting MP or the Opposition’s candidate”, he says, posing for the camera on the dusty lane.

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Madhepura, which lies in the flood-prone Kosi river valley, is known as the ‘Yadavland of Bihar’; only candidates from the Yadav caste have been able to win this Lok Sabha seat since 1968. Of the constituency’s more than 14 lakh voters, five lakh are Yadavs, followed by nearly two lakh Muslims and 1.5 lakh Rajput voters. A popular adage says, “Rome Pope ka, Madhepura Gopeka (what Rome is to the Pope, Madhepura is to the Yadav)”

The first of those influential Yadavs was none other than B.P. Mandal, who chaired the Second Backward Class Commission. Popularly known as the Mandal Commission, its recommendations were implemented by the then-V.P. Singh government at the Centre in 1990, a pivotal decision that led to the emergence of formidable regional parties in Bihar and neighborouring Uttar Pradesh. Decades earlier, Mr. Mandal, who hailed from an influential Yadav family of Murho village, was elected as the MP from Madhepura twice, in 1968 and 1977; he also served as the seventh Chief Minister of Bihar during a 30-day period in 1968.

Later, veteran socialist leader Sharad Yadav won four times, in 1991, 1996, 1999, and 2009, thuough he also lost four times from Madhepura, in 1998, 2004, 2014, and 2019. Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav represented the constituency twice, in 1998 and 2004.

In 2014, heavyweight gangster-turned-politician Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav was elected from his native Madhepura — he was born in Khurda village of Kumarkhand block — but shifted his base, along with his family, to Purnea district, from where he is contesting the 2024 election as an Independent candidate.