Ashok Kumar and Kishore Kumar live on in the heart of Ramdulari Devi (70) - a dhoban (washerwoman) and Mahadalit - who lives in a ramshackle hut with her five sons and daughters right across the 150-year-old and classically built house in which the two legendary brothers of Bollywood spent large parts of their childhood.

"I have vivid memories of Ashok Kumar and Kishore Kumar coming to this house with their mother, Gauri Devi, and staying during vacations (sometime in the 1960s). I washed their clothes and did their household chores. I served Ira Banerjee, their cousin, too.

They were our benefactors who paid me well and took me to places on family trips," Ramdulari says.

The house of Kishore Kumar and Ashok Kumar's maternal ancestors in the Adampur area of Bhagalpur is associated with the Bengal Renaissance. Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore was anointed as "vishva kavi (world poet)" after he addressed a literary conclave here in 1910, about three years before becoming a Nobel laureate. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's magnum opus Shrikanta derives its theme from the streets of Bhagalpur. Sheochandra Banerjee Road and Manik Sarkar Chowk suggest that the silk city - as it is also known for production of tussar silk - had the dominant influence of Bengali culture at least till the 1970s and early '80s here. The infamous 1989 riots were probably the last nail in the coffin of the liberal values, leading to emergence of the new forces inimical to it.

Ramdulari does not know any of the films in which Ashok Kumar worked or any of the songs that Kishore Kumar sang. But her granddaughter, Chanda Kumari (24), when asked if she knew Kishore Kumar's songs, hums "Kabhi alvida na kehna". "My mother introduced us to Ashok Kumar when he appeared on TV in dhoti, kurta and thick framed glass in a film," Chanda, a Class X pass, says.

While the poverty-stricken Ramdulari and her family members treasure Kishore Kumar and Ashok Kumar's memory, Guddu Dubey, a toughie and BJP-RSS worker who is also a ward councillor, owns the house of the legends' maternal ancestors. "Ira Banerjee had registered the house in our names," Guddu says, trying to avoid questions related to the legendary family. So palpable is his (Guddu's) fear among the residents that they are not ready to talk to this reporter about the house. "Don't ask us about Kishore Kumar, Ashok Kumar or their house. We don't know," a shopkeeper next to the landmark house, says.

But Ramdulari is intrepid. "I have washed their clothes. I have served them. For me, this house still belongs to Kishore Kumar and Ashok Kumar," Ramdulari says in front of Guddu. Guddu smilingly says: "She is not wrong. The house was theirs. It is ours now."

Whom will Ramduari and her family members vote for? "Certainly, we will not vote for the BJP. They (Guddu) have captured the house, that I served and earned our sustenance from. Now, they don't let our children play in the courtyard that we once entered and cleaned."

Guddu differs. "Duniya ki koi taqat is baar BJP ko yahan se nahin rok sakti hai (No power on the earth can stop the BJP from winning Bhagalpur). Arjit Shashwat, son of Buxar MP and former Bhagalpur MLA Ashwini Kumar Choubey, is a sure winner here. Go anywhere to confirm," Guddu says.

But Guddu has takers of his loud claim only among his Brahmin caste men.

The BJP's mahanagar president, Vijay Kumar Sahu, has entered the fray as a rebel candidate, threatening to eat into the party's business-class vote bank. And the Yadavs, Dalits, backwards and Muslims look united behind the JDU-led alliance and Congress candidate in this seat, Ajit Sharma, who had wrested it from the BJP in the 2014 Assembly by-elections.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed back-to-back Parivartan rallies in Bhagalpur, Banka and Lakhisarai. Modi asked for "parivartan" from Nitish and Lalu Prasad's hegemony for the past 25 years. But the Yadavs, Gangotas, Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) and Muslims are, apparently, working to reverse what Modi advocated.

"Hum logon ka vote bantne se Bhajpa walaa jeet raha thaa. Ab kahan jitega..uska kahin ata-pata nahin rahega (The BJP was winning because our votes got divided. Now, they will be nowhere)," said Kanti Mandal (50), a Gangota and resident of Alalpur, a village across the Ganga that passes through Bhagalpur.

The JDU-RJD-Congress Grand Alliance appears to have worked in the Bhagalpur region spread across seven Assembly seats - Bhagalpur, Nathnagar, Kahalgaon, Pirpainti, Sultanganj, Bihpur and Gopalpur - and in the bordering areas of Bihar, Jharkhand nd Bengal.

Javed Ansari (50) of Shahjangi, a village inhabited by nearly 5,000 Muslims on the southern fringes of Bhagalpur, says: "Hava tou iss baar mahagathbandhan ka hai (There is a wave in favour of the Grand Alliance this time)."

Manoj Yadav, a Yadav and Gangota-dominated Tulsipur, 20km south across the Ganga, echoes: "Nitish ne vikas kiya hai, road, pool, puliya, school banawaya hai, Laluji bhi unke saath hain (Nitish has carried out development, has got bridges and culverts built. Lalu Prasad is with him)."

Ironically, both the BJP as well as Grand Alliance supporters says they are voting for vikas (development). "Sadly, I know that the JDU's Ajay Mandal is a non-performer but will win because he will get votes in the name of castes - 40,000 Yadavs and 30,000 Gangotas. Still, we will vote for the BJP on the call of vikas given by Modi," Manoj Pandey, a social activist organising a three-day Mahatma Gandhi anniversary at his Brahmin-dominated Baijani village, a part of the Nathnagar seat, says.

But Ajay Yadav at Tulsipur counters: "Modi has given a jhansa (bluff). My sons and daughters are getting scholarship and cycles for studying. We have got roads and school in our village. These are all Nitish's gifts. What has Modi done except making false promises?"

In fact, after the 1989 riots triggered by stone pelting on a religious procession, the BJP-RSS increased its stranglehold on Bhagalpur. The BJP won the Bhagalpur Assembly seat in 1990 and retained it till it lost to the Grand Alliance's nominee, Ajit Sharma, last year. In company with Nitish, the BJP spread its coverage, winning the Bhagalpur Lok Sabha seat thrice with Sushil Modi, Shahnawaz Hussain winning through the late '90s till the party lost to the RJD's Bulo Mandal in 2014.

The stone pelting at a religious procession in 1989 helped the BJP-RSS to turn Bhagalpur into its bastion. Such incidents are no longer working to its advantage. An animal bone was found in a shrine at Nathnagar on September 25. Another animal bone tumbled from another shrine at Husseinabad on September 29. Bhagalpur became tense for a while. "But we sensed immediately that these are the mischief of communal elements. The tension has evaporated," says Javed at Shahjangi. "Times have changed. People don't want to fight among themselves."

There is an apparent churning for change in Bhagalpur's society, change from the BJP's dominance. Rakesh Kumar, a graduate at Bhagalpur, sings: "Jindagi ka safar, kaisi hai ye saffar, koi jana nahiin koi samjha nahin (It is life's journey. Nobody can say how life travels)."

Again a Kishore Kumar number to depict Bhagalpur's safar (journey) for change.

Bhagalpur votes on October 12