Pappu Yadav's diet is going nowhere. The fare of flattened rice and spiced curd with pakodas and panthuas on the side doesn't impress the Madhepura MP - striving to punch above his excess weight these polls. "Yeh kya Gujarati-type khana laga diya hai," he tells an attendant, biting off a large green chilli in resignation.

Acquitted of the murder of the CPM's one-time Purnea MLA, Ajit Sarkar, after conviction by lower courts, Pappu emerged from prison last year to renew his lease in the Lok Sabha as Lalu Prasad's man from Madhepura. His task was to demolish the RJD boss' one-time friend and foe, JDU president Sharad Yadav.

Pappu emerged the "giant killer", but soon fell out with Lalu. Now, Pappu (47) finds himself on a different wicket as he fights for his nascent political outfit's candidates in the Kosi region where he struts - rather zooms - around like a monarch of all that he surveys.

The recent remarks of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, calling for a review of caste-based reservation, may have driven undecided backward classes to the mahagatbandhan but has found resonance with Pappu.

"Should mine or (LJP leader Ram Vilas) Paswan's children get reservation? The policy has to be reviewed. If we win, I will ensure 10 per cent reservation for the poor - irrespective of religion or caste. When there are 4,600 villages in Bihar without a middle school, how will reservation impact Dalits or Muslims," he says.

Part of the Samajwadi Party-led Socialist Secular Morcha, Pappu's Jan Adhikar Party (Loktantrik) - the party that he formed after being shown the door by the RJD - has fielded 64 candidates. His aim: to break the mahagatbandhan-NDA binary in the Yadav-dominated parts of the Kosi region.

Pappu dismisses the allegation levelled by the Grand Alliance that he is the "B-team of the BJP" - a vote katua to split the Yadav electorate who may otherwise vote for candidates of the alliance of the Janata twins and the Congress.

"The BJP or RJD have nothing in common with me," asserts Pappu. "The BJP is making poison out of beef; they are devouring common people with their poisonous politicking. If they love cows so much, why do they sell them to butchers when they grow old? I eat meat. Does it mean I slaughter cows? Are buffalo and bull meat not beef too and do these people treat these animals like god?"

He is equally scathing of the RJD - from which he was expelled - and Lalu Prasad. "Economic offences are worse than communal violence. The former affects the entire population while the latter kills people in hundreds. Lalu neither understands politics nor respects democracy. His governance is all about family and middlemen and money. Nitish emulates him but at least he is clever and creative," Pappu says.

His wife Ranjeeta Ranjan is the Congress MP for neighbouring Supaul. She has kept a low profile during these polls and has not participated in her husband's campaign. Pappu though is not averse to her party. "My wife and I have chosen different paths to achieve the same goal of fighting racketeers and communal forces.

There's no question of me giving support to anybody but I can collaborate based on our agenda of education, health and economic development. I have no problem with the Congress."

Pappu's soft-corner for the Congress dates back several years. He and his wife had changed sides and drifted towards the Congress before the 2009 Lok Sabha

polls. Pappu was then an RJD MP from Madhepura and Ranjeeta the LJP Lok Sabha member from Saharsa. Though the Congress refrained from formally inducting Pappu due to his conviction, the party welcomed Ranjeeta.

Pappu, however, was rewarded in an indirect way as the Congress supported his mother Shanti Devi, who contested as an Independent from Purnea.

From killing to kidnapping, robbery to ransom, Pappu's history sheet makes a formidable catalogue of crimes. He is what they call - duly, but often also deferentially - a bahubali, a strongman and don. He shot into the limelight in the early nineties. Pappu was lapped up by Lalu Prasad for challenging the might of upper caste Rajputs in the region symbolised by another don, Anand Mohan. He later fell out with Lalu and joined Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party and became an MP from Purnea. He returned to Lalu again and contested the Madhepura Lok Sabha seat vacated by the RJD chief in 2004.

Pappu crossed swords with Ajit Sarkar as the CPM legislator was an impediment in his political path. Sarkar, a revolutionary leader, was a prominent figure in Purnea since the seventies as he waged a relentless battle against big landlords of the region. Like the Naxalites, he used to capture land and distribute it among the landless. This move turned him into a hero of the downtrodden of the region and annoyed the landlords. From 1980 till his murder in 1999, Sarkar continued to be elected as an MLA from Purnea.

Power is what power does. Locals fondly talk of Pappu's campaign on a Bullet motorcycle last year. In the same breath, they also praise the improvement of security and roads in the last decade. In the crowd of his faithful that disperse into the fog after a day of campaigning, a civil services aspirant, who did not wish to be named, hazards a guess on who will come out on top of this contest.

"Saansadji (Pappu) is popular, but he is not the one contesting. There is no anger against Nitish though the BJP is popular at least among the upper castes. Despite his (Pappu's) popularity, many of us who voted him to power may vote for the mahagatbandhan. They make promises that can be kept," the young lad told this correspondent.

In spite of his popularity which led him to defeat Sharad Yadav last year, Pappu has failed to get the approach road to his village repaired. He attributes his "challenge to the system" as the reason for "discrimination against the Kosi region".

"My role models are Vivekananda and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. I respect Gandhi and Nehru but their methods are not relevant to this system. Justice comes on the basis of power. You can't keep everybody happy and still bring about justice. If I am called a bahubali (strongman) for saying so, then I agree. I am a bahubali against capitalists and thieves."

What after the polls? Pappu has set his eyes on the crisis in Nepal which claimed the life of a Darbhanga youth on Monday. "I won't let one Madhesi die. Yeh aar paar ki ladai hai. If they (Nepal government) oppress the Madhesis, we will hit back through blockades. I have challenged the system all my life and I can fight the unjust system of Nepal too," he said.

♦ Madhepura votes on November 5