Eight seats in Bihar to go to polls in last phase, 134 candidates in fray

Patna: More than 1.6 crore voters will decide the fate of 134 candidates in the final phase of Lok Sabha elections in Bihar on Saturday when eight seats will go to the polls.

Several high profile candidates are in the fray for the eight seats -- Patna Sahib, which covers the state capital, Patliputra that comprises the rural outskirts, Arrah, Karakat, Jehanabad, Buxar, Nalanda and Jehanabad.

Stakes are particularly high for the BJP in the final phase as it seeks to retain five of these seats, which made up for more than a quarter of its state-wide tally of 17.

Union minister RK Singh is aiming at a hat-trick from Arrah, where his principal challenger is Sudama Prasad, a sitting MLA of the CPI(ML) Liberation which has expanded its footprints in the state rapidly ever since it allied with the RJD and the Congress ahead of assembly polls and came up with best ever performance of 12 seats.

Arrah Lok Sabha seat comprises six assembly segments, including Agiaon, a reserved seat, where by-poll will also be held simultaneously. The by-election has been necessitated by disqualification of CPI(ML) MLA Manoj Manzil following conviction in a murder case by a local court.

The Left party's candidate in the assembly by-poll is Shiv Prakash Ranjan, a former student leader, while the NDA has fielded Prabhunath Prasad of JD(U), the runner up of 2020 Vidhan Sabha polls, when he lost to Manzil by a margin of over 48,000 votes.

In Patna Sahib, veteran BJP parliamentarian Ravi Shankar Prasad is aiming at a second consecutive Lok Sabha term. The ex-Union minister's principal challenger is Congress spokesperson Anshul Avijit, whose mother Meira Kumar is a former Lok Sabha speaker and late maternal grandfather Jagjivan Ram had been a deputy PM.

In Pataliputra, RJD president Lalu Prasad's eldest daughter Misa Bharti is trying her luck for the third time. The BJP MP Ram Kripal Yadav, a former close aide of Prasad and ex-Union minister, is aiming at a hat-trick.

The BJP also hopes that AIMIM candidate Mohd Farooq Raza, for whom party chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi has also canvassed, would cut into RJD votes.

In Nalanda, the home district of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who heads the JD(U), sitting MP Kaushlendra Kumar hopes to retain the seat for the party for a record fourth term. The principal challenger is Sandeep Saurav, a sitting CPI(ML) MLA and former JNU students' union leader.

Karakat is witnessing a multi-cornered fight which is being most talked about because of Bhojpuri superstar Pawan Singh, who is contesting as an Independent.

Singh entered the fray after having earlier turned down a BJP ticket from Asansol in West Bengal. The move has led to his expulsion from the party.

Upendra Kushwaha, a former Union minister who heads the Rashtriya Lok Morcha, had won the seat in 2014 but lost it five years later upon quitting NDA. He is hopeful of wresting the seat back following return to the BJP-led coalition.

The CPI(ML), which has a strong presence in the area, has fielded Raja Ram Kushwaha, a former MLA and farmer leader.

The pitch has been queered further with the AIMIM fielding Priyanka Chaudhary, a zila parishad member.

In Sasaram, the BJP has dropped two-term MP Chhedi Paswan to field Shivesh Ram, a former MLA and state general secretary. The reserved seat has formerly been a Congress bastion, with Jagjivan Ram and Meira Kumar together winning it nine times. However, Kumar has backed out of the race and her party has fielded Manoj Kumar, a recent entrant who was formerly with the BSP headed by ex-CM of UP Mayawati.

In Jehanabad, the JD(U) has reposed its trust in sitting MP Chandeshwar Prasad Chandravanshi, whose victory margin in 2019, of less than 2,000 votes, was the lowest for any of the 40 constituencies in Bihar.

The RJD candidate is Surendra Prasad Yadav, the runner up of 2019, who had won the seat in 1998.

In Buxar, the BJP sprung a surprise by denying Union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey the chance to run for a third consecutive term. The party hopes its candidate Mithilesh Tiwari, a former MLA and state vice president, will retain the seat.

However, Tiwari’s bid has met a strong challenge from RJD’s Sudhakar Singh, a sitting MLA whose father Jagadanand Singh heads the party’s state unit and had won the Buxar seat in 2009.

Queering the pitch, Anand Mishra, a former Assam cadre IPS officer, who resigned from service nursing political ambitions but did not get a ticket from the BJP which had allegedly promised the same, is also contesting as an Independent.

Total number of electorate for all the eight parliamentary constituencies is 1.62 crore, including 77.02 lakh women.

Polling will take place at 16,634 polling stations, of which only 3,885 are situated in urban areas, nearly half of these (1,657) in Patna Sahib alone.

Patna Sahib also has the largest electorate (22.90 lakh) though it is the smallest in terms of area, spread across only 641.41 sq km.