HUMBLING THE GOLIATHS

Minnows, no-hopers, underdogs? Not any more. These new MPs are all claimants to the description that they have felled some of the mightiest political grandees of the realm

- Anilesh S. Mahajan, Jeemon Jacob, Prashant Srivastava, Amitabh Srivastava, Rohit Parihar, Dhaval S. Kulkarni, Rahul Noronha and Kaushik Deka

BHASKAR BHAGARE, 53 | NCP(S-P) Dindori (ST), Maharashtra

THE DEBUTANTS GIANT-SLAYERS

It was billed as a David versus Goliath fight-a Union Mos, a legacy politician to boot, against an ordinary school teacher who had spent 33 years awakening kids at Pimpalgaon Baswant to the finer points of history and Marathi. As it happened, Bhagare 'Guruji' dispensed a few lessons even to Dr Bharati Pawar. Associated with the NCP since its 1999 launch, the tribal leader's ambit had hitherto not gone beyond the panchayat samiti and zilla parishad. But the willingness he encountered while raising funds from villagers for the campaign already showed a potent anger was simmering on low flame among onion cultivators.

RAKIBUL HUSSAIN, 59 CONGRESS Dhubri, Assam

The five-time Samaguri MLA has never suffered from a deficit of electoral taurine, aptly enough for a more pugnacious moniker he has stopped using. In 2011, the Congress toro bravo from Nagaon district had thrown even ex-CM Prafulla Kumar Mahanta in an assembly poll bullring. This time, he created history with the highest Lok Sabha victory margin ever: 1,012,476 votes.

The matador who lay gored was multi-millionaire perfume baron and AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal, who had won Dhubri since 2009. Not many fancied Hussain's chances: an Assamese speaker in a predominantly Bangla-flavoured immigrant zone, he was a 'non-non-native' in this 85 per cent Muslim seat. The surge of support for him against the self-attested proprietor of local Muslim affections, thus, also became a sign of mainstreaming. Now he's targeting another giant. His demand that six communities be given tribal status, if fulfilled, would make of Assam a tribal majority state. That would disqualify former close ally Himanta Biswa Sarma from CM-ship.