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'Modi's image has no takers among the masses.'
"Such a frenzy was created about Modi till about 2017, that if you criticised him in public there was a good chance of people attacking you, but it is no longer so. The same janta that voted for him overwhelmingly in 2014 and 2019 is openly against him," says Dr Sandeep Saurav, the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist candidate from Nalanda.
Dr Saurav gave up a teaching career as lecturer of Hindi literature to join politics and successfully contested the Bihar assembly election from Paliganj in 2020.
This time, he is locked in a tough fight with three-time Janata Dal-United MP Kaushalendra Kumar. The CPI-ML is part of the INDIA formation, while the JD-U is part of the NDA.
A former student leader at JNU and All India Student Association, Dr Saurav is an impassioned speaker. "The youth has understood that Modi cannot give them jobs," he says and vehemently condemns the government's attack on universities.
"This government is 'managing' youth anger due to unemployment," he says, sitting in a room with party workers in Bihar Sharif, the headquarter of Nalanda district.
At the entrance, a large group of INDIA party workers and CPI-ML comrades are having a meal prepared in an area designated as the kitchen. "The cook is our comrade," informs a lady CPI-ML member from Sitamarhi district.
"Sarkar badlegi (the government will change)," says Dr Saurav, "The BJP will lose Maharashtra, Bihar and Purvanchal."
"Another message that has reached the poor and deprived that that Dr Ambedkar's Constitution is in danger and Modi wants to change it."
Watch: Part 2 of the interview:
On Youth resentment due to unemployment
On combating the allure of Hindutva, the power of caste and Modi's unquestioned popularity
Modi's 'choreographed' roadshows in Bihar
On what the result will show on June 4
On the inability to raise funds
On Nitish Kumar's future
On Modi 3.0
Three things that will change if Modi returns
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com