With eye on the future, Osama has a past to contend with

One name which is at the centre of a storm in the Bihar election is that of Osama Shahab, the son of late Mohammad Shahabhuddin, the don-turned-politician who once epitomised terror in Siwan, Gopalganj, and Saran districts.

But unlike his father, Mr. Shahab, 31, has a calm demeanour, and his uncombed hair and untrimmed beard make him very different from his father. He does not like to speak much and keeps to himself even while campaigning.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has fielded Mr. Shahab from the Raghunathpur Assembly constituency, replacing the sitting MLA Harishankar Yadav. Mr. Harishankar and the RJD candidate from Siwan, Awadh Bihari Choudhary, always accompany Mr. Shahab while campaigning and it is the sitting MLA who does the talking.

Mr. Shahab is not very media-friendly either and avoids journalists. One of his supporters in Hussainganj, Farhan Khan, said the RJD candidate does not speak to the media because “you people take the byte of something and play something else after editing it”. “He does not want to land in any controversy because his life is already filled with controversies,” he said.

Mr. Shahab, who is contesting elections for the first time, has his father’s legacy to contend with, yet he is trying his best to connect with the local people. He may not speak in front of a crowd, but he tries to mingle around with people by shaking hands. The people have been giving him a warm welcome.

The only time he was seen addressing a rally was two days ago, when RJD leader and INDIA bloc chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav was in Raghunathpur to campaign. Mr. Yadav suddenly asked Mr. Shahab to speak to the crowd and seek votes. For a few seconds, the latter seemed unnerved and stared at Mr. Yadav. Then he spoke in Bhojpuri, asking people to vote for the INDIA bloc so that Mr. Yadav can become the Chief Minister. He talked about rampant corruption at the block level. There was a slip of tongue when he said that the “poor earn ₹10,000 every day” drawing laughter from the crowd, but he corrected and said, “I mean every month”, and finished his speech in one minute.

In Sonbarsa, the villagers weighed him in apples – 119 kg. Later, he posted a message on social media saying, “The love and blessings I received by being weighed with apples in Sonbarsa was a deeply emotional and inspiring moment for me. This is not just an honour, but a symbol of the people’s unwavering faith, warm affection, and desire for change.”

While the young generation sees hope in Mr. Shahab, the elderly still remember the era when Siwan’s name was in the headlines due to Shahabuddin’s reign of terror. The BJP is using this in its campaign. Union Ministers Amit Shah and J. P. Nadda have already slammed the RJD for giving a ticket to Mr. Shahab. Both said that fielding Shahabbudin’s son means bringing back the ‘jungle raj’. Last week, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adtiyanath, at a rally in Siwan, said that a “khandani mafia” (mafia family) wants to seize control again.

But some voters are not bothered about the Shahabuddin name. “We do not care what others say about Osama. Shahabuddin was past and Osama is the present. People call his father a criminal, but he helped many needy and poor people irrespective of caste and religion,” said Mohammad Shadab, a resident of Firozpur village.

Mr. Shahab, who has two criminal cases pending against him, is up against the Janata Dal (United) candidate Vikas Kumar Singh, alias Jishu Singh, who is a close associate of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. While campaigning, he has been asking people to recall the days when fear loomed large in Siwan.

Muslims dominate the Raghunathpur Assembly constituency along with the Yadavs. Rajputs and other upper castes are in large numbers making it a contest of backward and forward communities. Under the Raghunathpur constituency falls Pratappur, the ancestral village of Shahabuddin, where Rajputs are in big numbers.

“I do not think it is a good sign to compare Shahabuddin with his son. Osama has always maintained a low profile in Siwan and is hardly visible. This is for the first time, we are seeing him up close,” Manish Kumar Singh, a resident of Pratappur, said.

Shahabuddin was very close to Lalu Prasad’s family and the most important leader of the MY (Muslim-Yadav) equation banking on which Mr. Prasad ruled Bihar for 15 years. After Shahabuddin’s death in 2021, the RJD maintained a distance from his family. His wife Hena Shahab unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha election four times, thrice on an RJD ticket and once as an Independent.

Shahabuddin, a four-time parliamentarian, died while serving a life sentence in a double murder case in Tihar jail in May 2021 during Covid.