Bihar bypolls: 9.53% voter turnout till 9 AM in 4 assembly seats

Patna: A voter turnout of 9.53 per cent was registered till 9 AM on Wednesday in the by-elections to Tarari, Imamganj, Belaganj and Ramgarh assembly seats in Bihar on Wednesday, an official said.

The polling is scheduled to continue till 6 PM, he said. However, voting will continue till 4 PM at certain polling stations in the Imamganj constituency, he added.

According to the Election Commission data, Ramgarh witnessed 11.35 per cent turnout of voters till 9 AM, followed by Belaganj at 9.12 per cent, Tarari at 9.3 per cent, Imamganj at 8.46 per cent.

All four assembly seats had fallen vacant after MLAs representing them were elected in the last Lok Sabha election.

More than 12 lakh voters will decide the fate of 38 candidates in these four assembly seats.

Voting is taking place at 1,277 booths, of which 1,196 fall in rural areas.

As per the Election Commission data, about 5.73 lakh voters are women and 19 are of the third gender. There are also 631 voters who are aged 100 years or above, while those aged over 85 years are 11,510.

All the poll-bound seats fall in the area south of the Ganga river.

These constituencies are considered a stronghold of the Mahagathbandhan, the INDIA bloc's Bihar prototype comprising the RJD, the Left and the Congress.

The results will be out on November 23.

The NDA, led by the BJP which is contesting Tarari and Ramgarh seats, is putting up a stiff fight, realising that it must maintain the tempo in view of the next year's elections.

However, the pitch has been queered for both the ruling and the opposition coalitions with the entry of Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj, which is contesting all four seats.

In Imamganj, a reserved seat, where the bypoll was necessitated by the election to Lok Sabha from Gaya of Jitan Ram Manjhi, a Union minister and founder of the Hindustani Awam Morcha, the party has fielded Deepa, wife of his son Santosh Suman who is also a minister in the state's Nitish Kumar government.

In neighbouring Belaganj, Vishwanath Kumar Singh is making his debut on an RJD ticket, hoping to retain the seat his father Surendra Prasad Yadav had won many times on the trot before getting elected to Lok Sabha from Jehanabad.

The main challenge in the seat has come from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) which has fielded former MLC Manorama Devi.

Jan Suraaj has fielded local social activist Mohd Amjad, in a clear bid to upset the apple cart for the two established parties, both of which vie for votes of the minorities.