13% turnout as Bihar votes in 1st phase of polls; fate of Lalu’s sons in balance
BIHAR, NOV 6 : The high-stakes Bihar Assembly election kicked off on Thursday, with 13.13 per cent voter turnout recorded till 9 am in the first of two phases. Polling is underway in 121 of the state’s 243 constituencies, setting up a fierce contest between the ruling NDA and a resurgent Mahagathbandhan.
The fate of several ministers, as well as RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and his estranged brother Tej Pratap, will be sealed in the first phase. Poll strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party has been billed as the ‘X’ factor, adding a bit of intrigue to the high-stakes contest.
In 2020, the Mahagathbandhan, led by the RJD, had the upper hand, bagging 63 seats to the NDA’s 55. It remains to be seen if history repeats itself, as the region, which includes the capital Patna, has more often than not determined the pulse of Bihar politics.
Prominent seats in this phase include Raghopur, where Tejashwi is hoping for a hat-trick; Mahua, where Tej Pratap is in the fray; and Tarapur, from where deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary is contesting.
The campaigning for the first phase saw the RJD and the Congress pivot their narrative around unemployment, law and order, and the claim that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was the BJP’s puppet. On the other hand, the NDA revived the “jungle raj” refrain to corner the RJD.
Raghopur will witness a high-voltage contest, with Tejashwi squaring off against BJP’s Satish Kumar, who had defeated his mother Rabri Devi in the 2010 elections. This time, Kumar is contesting on a JD(U) symbol. Prashant Kishor’s party is also in the fray.
In adjoining Mahua, Tejashwi’s estranged elder brother Tej Pratap will seek to wrest the seat from the sitting RJD MLA Mukesh Raushan. It will be a battle of prestige for the Hasanpur MLA after being expelled from the RJD earlier this year.
Folk singer Maithili Thakur, who is contesting on a BJP ticket, is in the fray from Alinagar, which has long been an RJD territory. Thakur, the BJP’s youngest candidate, will bank on her fame to win the upper caste Brahmin-dominated constituency.
Bhojpuri superstars Khesari Lal Yadav, who is contesting on a RJD ticket from Chhapra, and Ritesh Pandey, who is contesting from the Jan Suraaj Party in Kargahar, will also face the poll music.
Several ministers in the Nitish Kumar government, including Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, will also have their electoral fates decided. While Sinha will hope to retain Lakhisarai for the fourth consecutive term, Choudhary is contesting an assembly poll after about a decade from Tarapur.
The high-profile seat of Siwan will see 53-year-old Mangal Pandey, Bihar’s health minister and a former state BJP president, make his assembly election debut. He has been pitted against RJD’s Awadh Chaudhary, a former assembly Speaker.
How can any Bihar election be complete without bahubali politics? This time too, there are several strongmen in the contest – from the son of Mohammad Shahabuddin, Osama Shahab (Raghunathpur), to JD(U)’s Anant Singh.
What seemed a routine assembly fight has turned into a high-stakes prestige battle between two Bahubali figures in Mokama following the murder of a Jan Suraaj supporter. JD(U)’s Anant Singh, who is in jail in connection with the murder, is locked in a straight battle with the wife of RJD’s Suraj Bhan, a gangster.
With women emerging as a decisive voting bloc, both sides have made tall promises. While NDA has wooed with a Rs 10,000 cash transfer scheme, the opposition has countered with Tejashwi Yadav’s promise of Rs 30,000 under ‘Mai Bahin Maan Yojana’.
The elections are being held under the shadow of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which saw around 60 lakh voter deletions. The opposition has alleged that the exercise was an attempt to disenfranchise lakhs of people from marginalised communities.
-PTI
