GOPALGANJ, Oct. 29 -- A weathered stone plaque gleams under the afternoon sun in the heart of the ancient Thawe Mata Mandir premises, five kilometers east of Gopalganj town. Inscribed in bold Devanagari script, it commemorates the foundation-laying ceremony for the temple's beautification, performed by then-deputy chief minister and tourism minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav in 2022. Gopalganj, carved out as an assembly seat in 2008 but tracing its political roots to the broader district's history, has been a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fortress since 2005, when the NDA's anti-incumbency wave against Lalu Prasad's RJD swept through Bihar. Subhash Singh, a fiery Rajput leader, clinched the seat that year and held it through 2010 and 2015, even serving as a minister in Nitish Kumar's cabinet. His untimely death in 2022 triggered a bypoll, where his widow Kusum Devi rode a sympathy wave to victory by a razor-thin 1,700-vote margin over RJD's Mohan Gupta - a gritty contest that underscored the seat's volatility despite BJP's dominance. This time, the BJP has shuffled the deck, denying Kusum the ticket amid whispers of internal discord and fielding Subash Singh (no relation to the late MLA), the influential chairman of Gopalganj Zila Parishad. The move aims to consolidate the party's upper-caste base - Brahmins (15-18% of voters) and Rajputs (12-15%) - who view the BJP as their natural guardian in a landscape scarred by RJD's Mandal-era caste mobilizations. "We've stuck with BJP because they speak our language - of pride, security and schemes that put rice in our bowls without the baggage of 'jungle raj'," says Ravish Shukla, a 52-year-old Brahmin farmer from Jirwa village, tilling parched fields that double as floodplains each monsoon. The BJP's grip here stems from an anti-RJD sentiment post-2005, when Bihar's "jungle raj" narrative painted the Yadav-Muslim axis as chaotic; a robust upper-caste consolidation that has delivered 55-60% of votes to NDA candidates since 2010; and Nitish Kumar's JD(U) alliance, which peels off some Extremely Backward Classes (25% of electorate) through targeted welfare. In 2020, the NDA romped home with 58% vote share in Gopalganj, buoyed by Modi's nationalism and free rations amid COVID-19 lockdowns. As the nomination of Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party's candidate was cancelled, the JSP has thrown his weight behind another BJP rebel, Anup Kumar Srivastava, potentially siphoning 5-7% of upper-caste votes in this triangular tussle. For the Mahagathbandhan (MGB), it's a calculated incursion. In a bid to breach the upper-caste ramparts, the seat has been allotted to ally Congress, with Om Prakash Garg - a seasoned Brahmin face - as the nominee. "If Yadavs (22%) and Muslims (28%, the highest in any Bihar seat) glue together, and we snag even 20% from Brahmins tired of BJP's complacency, Garg ji can topple the fort," posits Sheetal Rai, 38, who runs a modest general store in Ranvahi village. Her ledger books migration remittances from Delhi and Mumbai - a lifeline for 40% of Gopalganj's households. But spoilers lurk. AIMIM's Anas Salam and BSP's Indira Yadav (sister-in-law to Lalu Prasad) could fragment the MGB's MY (Muslim-Yadav) core, as they did in 2022, polling over 20,000 votes combined. "Discarded like yesterday's prasad, they still nibble at our plate," laments Rajit Prasad, a 60-year-old retiree from Bhital Bherwa, eyeing a nail-biter if consolidation holds. Congress nominee Garg also exuded confidence that he would stop the winning streak of the BJP this time. Beneath the caste calculus, real fissures run deep. The district grapples with chronic underdevelopment despite Bihar's 9.2% GSDP growth in 2023-24 - third-highest nationally. Literacy hovers at 70.5% (up from 65.5% in 2011), but female literacy lags at 59%, per the 2024 Bihar Economic Survey, underscoring gender gaps in a district where 52% live below the poverty line (2022-23 NITI Aayog data). Unemployment stands at 4.2% overall (2024 PLFS), but youth joblessness (15-29 age) spikes to 15.1% - higher than the state average of 13.9% - fuelling out-migration....