HIS Bollywood dreams may have remained unfulfilled, but Mukesh Sahani has just landed a starring role. The Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) chief, with no MLAs in the Assembly but suitors in both the Bihar political fronts, has been declared by the Mahagathbandhan as its deputy chief minister face.
By all accounts, Sahani fought hard for this, and will be satisfied that the announcement of his name was made at the same press conference where the Mahagathbandhan declared RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav as its CM candidate.
What ensures a seat at the high table for Sahani, or the ‘Son of Mallah’ as he likes to call himself, is the Extremely Backward Class vote he brings to it. EBCs comprise a substantial 30% of Bihar’s voters. The Nishads or the boatmen community form approximately 9.6% of the same, as per the 2023 state caste survey, with the Mallah sub-caste among the Nishads to which Sahani belongs comprising 2.6% of the population.
Apart from Mallahs, the Nishad community includes the Bind, Manjhi, Kewat and Turha groups. Seen as “floating voters”, these marginalised groups live in the riverine belts of North Bihar and, in a closely contested election, could prove decisive in regions such as Muzaffarpur, East Champaran, Madhubani, Khagaria, Vaishali, and certain other districts.
Sahani is also looking to fill a crucial gap in Bihar not having a pan-state EBC leader since the late socialist icon and CM Karpoori Thakur. Among Sahanis, the state has seen only two important leaders – Bhagwan Lal Sahni and Captain Jai Narayan Prasad Nishad. At 44, Mukesh Sahani also has age on his side.
A school dropout who studied till Class 8, Sahani’s first love was Bollywood, and he left hometown Supaul Bazar in Darbhanga at the age of 19 to try his luck in Mumbai. Starting off as a salesman, he eventually managed an entry into the television and movie industry as a set designer. His company Mukesh Cine World Private Limited even landed big-ticket projects like Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Devdas (2002) and Salman Khan-starrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015).
If not roles, the movie links earned him instant attention back home. As per Sahani, people urged him to do “something for the community” when he organised Chhath on a grand scale in 2008. In 2010, he founded the Sahani Samaj Kalyan Sanstha, and as its meetings drew large crowds, his political ambitions rose.
It was the BJP that first spotted Sahani’s potential and, in 2015, fielded him as a campaigner in the Assembly elections. But the NDA government that came to power did not meet his demand to include Sahanis among Scheduled Castes, and he parted ways. In July 2018, Sahani floated the VIP.
In the Lok Sabha polls a year later, the Mahagathbandhan offered the VIP three seats under its umbrella. But the NDA swept Bihar in 2019, like most of the Hindi heartland, winning 39 of 40 seats. All of Sahani’s candidates lost, including Sahani himself from Khagaria in Munger.
By the 2020 Assembly polls, Sahani had tired of the Mahagathbandhan, and left the alliance, dissatisfied with the number of constituencies given to him. The NDA welcomed him with open arms, giving him 11 seats, the most after the BJP and JD(U).
The VIP won four seats in 2020, in an election where the RJD emerged as the single-largest party. However, within a year, one of its MLAs died, and in 2022, the remaining three joined the BJP, amidst souring of ties between the VIP and the BJP.
Subsequently, Sahani flipped again, and returned to the Mahagathbandhan. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the VIP contested three seats as part of the alliance – Purvi Champaran, Jhanjharpur and Gopalganj – and lost all.
In the run-up to the current Assembly elections, as Sahani demanded 30 seats in the RJD-led alliance, there was again talk that he might return to the NDA if denied at least 10-15. One card the Mahagathbandhan had, apart from the Deputy CM offer, was that it told Sahani he could field his own candidates on the VIP symbol. In 2020, the BJP had chosen his nominees for him.
An RJD leader told The Indian Express earlier: “The Nishads are a significant vote bank and the Mallahs are the most assertive among them. We see the VIP rallying the support of other sub-groups as well. With our focus on the EBCs in these polls, accommodating him could help us expand our social base.”
In an interview to The Indian Express earlier this month, Sahani said he expected the Mahagathbandhan to give him a “respectable” number of seats, adding: “There is near consensus (in the Mahagathbandhan) on Tejashwi Yadav being the CM face and me the Deputy CM face.”
He also said that contesting from Khagaria in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls had not been his choice, and this time he would fight from his preferred seat or someone in his family would. The VIP was looking for tickets from East Champaran, West Champaran, the Mithila region of Darbhanga, as well as Madhubani, Supaul, Samastipur, Kaimur, Munger, and Bhagalpur, he said. “Wherever there is a river, there is Mallah. Wherever there is water, there is Mallah.”
While criticising the BJP, Sahani said he had “great respect for Nitish Kumar, who has worked hard for the people who are on the fringes of the social order”. “I believe people like me, Tejashwi, and (LJP-RV chief) Chirag Paswan are the real heirs of Nitish Kumar’s legacy.”
Sahani also praised RJD chief Lalu Prasad, for becoming “the voice of the voiceless”, and said the VIP’s main expectation was reservation of seats for EBCs.
