Buxar, April 16: Atal Bihari Vajpayee, as Prime Minister or otherwise, does it every time. The electorate of this west Bihar parliamentary constituency takes the poet-leader very seriously.

Lalmuni Chaubey, who has represented Buxar on a BJP ticket for three consecutive terms, is in the field again — despite the party’s state unit opposing his candidature — because the Prime Minister wants his old friend back in the Lok Sabha.

It was not a surprise then that the Prime Minister, on his first campaign tour of Bihar, made it a point to visit Buxar again. Vajpayee’s meeting in the state capital was expected but the Prime Minister went to Buxar only because, as he famously said last time, “Mujhe Chaubey chahiye.”

There is more than one explanation for the Prime Minister’s love for the Benaras Hindu University graduate, who has been with Vajpayee since the early sixties. But ask Chaubey about the special relationship and he shoots back, “Why not ask Atalji instead?”

The leader who hails from Kaimur district does not fit the bill of a typical politician. Being Lalmuni Chaubey means being a person with little money but of integrity so impeccable that even his opponents appreciate this. “If you want some work done, Chaubey is the worst person to approach. He is honest to the extent of being mad,” said a close associate of the leader, requesting anonymity.

Unlike most candidates today, those who manage Chaubey’s affairs do it simply out of their absolute love for the man. The BJP leader has not bothered to even open an election office. He operates from a room in a lodge, run by an old friend, near the Buxar railway station.

Chaubey’s voters complain that he visits them only once in five years. The BJP candidate admits it. “My constituency has 3,700 villages. If I spare even one day for each village, it would take me 10 years to visit them. Parliament runs for some eight months every year and the work of the committees takes three months. The one month I am left with I try to spend in my constituency.”

RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav has put up his lieutenant Shivanand Tiwari against Chaubey. Sacked minister Dadan Pahalwan is in the fray as an Independent. The Samajwadi Party, the CPI, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the CPI(ML) have also put up their nominees.

But Chaubey is unperturbed. “I have spent my MP fund money in the best possible way. People know I have worked. I am not a great public relations manager. I am what I am,” he says. Chaubey’s supporters say the Prime Minister likes him because, despite his proximity, he has never approached Vajpayee for any work. “He is living in the wrong century,” says one of them.