There will be two CPI (ML-Liberation) MPs in parliament once more: These are what they are.

Arrah in Bihar was one of the two Lok Sabha seats that the Indian People's Front (IPF), which subsequently changed its name to the CPI(M-L) Liberation, won in 1989 when it had its best-ever election showing. Rameshwar Prasad went on to win the other seat.

Time jump to 2024. In the same Arrah seat, on June 4, Sudama Prasad, 63, the Liberation's Tarari MLA, stunned everyone by defeating sitting BJP MP and former Union home secretary R K Singh.

In the meantime, in Karakat, reticent Liberation leader Raja Ram Singh Kushwaha defeated former Union minister and NDA mainstay Upendra Kushwaha in a three-way race that also featured Bhojpuri singer Paw

With this achievement, the CPI (ML-Liberation) will have two MPs in Parliament once more, thirty-five years after it was first accomplished.

Raja Ram Singh and Sudama Prasad both came from lowly origins. While Raja Ram studied engineering before becoming interested in politics, Sudama Prasad began his career as a farmer leader, having previously had a sweetmeat shop.

Sudhamasundari Prasad
The new MP for Arrah resides in Bhojpur's Pawna village. As part of a continuing farmers' movement headed by the IPF, Bhojpur saw a fight between farmers and landlords while he assisted his father Gangadayal Sah in running the family's modest sweetmeat store in the village. Prasad was drawn to the organization because of this.

After completing Class 10, he left school in 1982 to work full-time for the IPF.

The group first appeared as the political branch of the CPI (ML), which separated from the CPI(M) in 1969 to become a radical group that prioritized Mao Zedong over Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin and moved further away from the Marxists.

Soon, the Liberation gained significant traction in the impoverished and caste-ridden rural hinterlands of Bihar, including portions of Magadh (Aurangabad and Karakat) and Shahabad (Arrah, Buxar, and Sasaram).

Following a long-running insurgency campaign against upper caste landlords, it progressively shifted its political position and established the IPF in 1982. But as a result, the CPI(ML) became fragmented, with certain factions continuing along the guerrilla route.

The IPF ran in the Bihar Assembly elections in 1985 and the 1989 Lok

In addition to being a Liberation comrade, Prasad also became known as an OBC leader. He ran in his first election from Arrah in the 1990 Assembly elections but was unsuccessful. But he didn't stop working on the ground; in 2014, he spearheaded a campaign in Bhojpur to allow farmers to sell paddy for a minimum of Rs 1,660 per quintal.

A year later, Prasad defeated Tarari in the Assembly elections, and he kept the seat for the Liberation in 2020. As an MLA, he has a reputation for bringing up farmer-related problems. As the current Chair of the Committee for Agriculture and Industry Development, he is recognized for advocating for the registration and issuance of identity cards to sharecroppers, also known as bataidars.

The fact that Prasad was running against the incumbent BJP member for Arrah, R K Singh, who was so sure of his development efforts that he did not campaign as much as his opponent, benefited him.

Following his triumph, Prasad told reporters, attributing his achievement to the power of the people: "It was primarily a fight to save the Constitution and democracy." At the grassroots level, I was able to perceive discontent that the media was unable to report on. I was chosen to represent Arrah in Parliament because of the strength of the people. He continued by saying that despite running his campaign out of the spotlight, he was able to effectively communicate his message to the public.

Ram Raja
Much like Prasad, the erstwhile Obra of the Liberation Raja Ram, the MLA, was also mainly ignored throughout the Karakat campaign, which was billed as a fight between Pawan Singh and Upendra Kushwaha. The latter fought as an Independent because the Opposition brought up the sexism of some of the Bhojpuri films he had starred in, which caused the BJP to change its mind about supporting him.

Raja Ram, a 66-year-old Kushwaha leader from Ekauni village in Aurangabad, is well-known in the community for his leadership qualities among farmers and for holding a significant office in the farmer organization Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Mahasabha.

He headed a Bihar-based group that joined the year-long farmer protests on Delhi's borders against the Center's now-scrapped agricultural rules. He has often called for the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs), which the Bihar government dismantled in 2006, to be reinstated.

Raja Ram is thought to have won support from voters from all castes in the Lok Sabha elections, going beyond the RJD's core constituency of Yadavs and Muslims to include OBC Kushwahas, who usually vote for the NDA.

Raja Ram, a BTech graduate of the Bihar College of Engineering (now NIT, Patna), is the son of a marginal farmer. Despite not pursuing an engineering career, he went on to become a significant IPF leader in the 1980s.

"While Karakat had become a high-profile seat, I kept my focus on campaigning and left the outcome to the people," Raja Ram said to media following his victory from Karakat. Unemployment and inflation were serious problems. In addition, the talk of the BJP violating the Constitution in the event of a resounding majority also instilled fear among the populace.