Satyendra Dubey, B Tech, meets Shahabuddin, PhD

He looks older, his stoop more pronounced. As The Sunday Express reported last week, the CBI has found merit in his son’s corruption allegations and said it may register criminal cases against contractors and officials. When that will happen Bageshwari Dubey doesn’t know but he’s more hopeful: ‘‘I believe the CBI will soon arrest the culprits.’’

The polling booth at Shahpur village is the Ganga Baksh school where Satyendra took his first lessons. He went on to graduate from IIT Kanpur, join the National Highways Authority of India and was overseeing a section of the Golden Quadrilateral when he was shot dead on November 27, 2003.

No one had heard of this engineer before his death. Shahabuddin, in contrast, is seen and heard everywhere.

His newly acquired PhD on ‘‘coalition governments’’ has added an impressive prefix to his election posters.

Faced with several dozen cases of murder and kidnapping, Dr Shahabuddin was technically in jail when this newspaper met him in the run-up to the elections.

For the sake of convenience, however, he was admitted to Siwan Government Hospital where he sank into a sofa in the verandah to speak. Meanwhile, three ministers of the Rabri government waited two hours for an audience. ‘‘Criminalisation is not only about violating the IPC,’’ he said. ‘‘There are sections of the law—for instance, the one on promoting religious harmony—which are frequently violated by politicians.’’

How does he manage his campaign? ‘‘Do you think I need to campaign to win the elections?’’ he asked. ‘‘I cannot win elections all the time through terror. People support me because of the work I have done…I am trying to bring about a mental revolution among the people.’’

Terror or respect or both, there is some evidence in Siwan of things working. Government doctors turn up on time, no patient goes back without treatment as a ‘‘voluntary’’ committee of local traders underwrites their expenses. Girls can cycle to the Women’s College without being teased. DAV College reports that the number of female students has shot up over the past four years. Many of them wear burqas.

Private doctors have been been made to follow a unique code. They can either charge a patient Rs 35 for consultation or they can charge Rs 50 but ‘‘voluntarily’’ offer free treatment 14 days a year.

Shahabuddin is also building a huge educational campus, complete with engineering, management and medical institutes.

Dr Shahabuddin can make all this happen. He has the muscle to enforce it. ‘‘I will give up politics if a single person in Siwan says I have oppressed my political opponents.’’ No one in Siwan will dare say that.

Perhaps, one of its citizens might have had the courage to speak out. That man is now dead.