LS polls: Star power, Nitish and Lalu's prestige at stake in Bihar

Loulo

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posted on 10 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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Nalanda, Patna Sahib, Pataliputra, Munger, Arrah, Buxar and Jahanabad are the seven seats which will go to vote on April 17.

A seat with star power in full play, another which is Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's stronghold and a constituency where the richest candidate in the state is contesting will vote along with four others on April 17 in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections.

Apart from Nitish Kumar, stakes are also high for Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad and Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi as they too have taken a lot of personal interest in Patalipura and Buxar seats respectively.

Nalanda, Patna Sahib, Pataliputra, Munger, Arrah, Buxar and Jahanabad are the seven seats where 1,18,50,786 voters, including 54,71,452 lakh women, 63,78,809 men and 525 belonging to the other category, are eligible to exercise their franchise at 11,846 polling booths and decide the fate of 117 candidates including nine women.

Some of the constituencies have Naxal presence and to ensure peaceful polling 42,600 security personnel, including 152 companies of Central Paramilitary Forces and 74 companies of Bihar Military Police besides 226 companies of armed personnel and 20,000 home guards have been deployed. The seven seats are spread over 11 districts in Bihar and two helicopters besides an air ambulance have been kept on standby.

The seats going to polls:

Nalanda: This is Nitish Kumar's stronghold and the seat has not disappointed him since 1996 when he put up an outsider George Fernandes who won convincingly. Fernandes retained the seat in 1998 and 1999 while in 2004 Nitish Kumar himself won from Nalanda. In the 2009 elections, the Bihar Chief Minister once again demonstrated his clout by getting another political lightweight Kaushlendra Kumar elected.

Kaushlendra Kumar is contesting once again but the dynamics have changed dramatically in the last one year after the JDU broke its alliance with the BJP. While JDU is now allied with the Communist Party of India, the BJP has new friends in Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party. The Congress and RJD have once again stitched an alliance.

Kumar's main rivals are Congress's Ashish Ranjan Sinha and LJP's Satyanand Sharma. Aam Aadmi Party's Pranav Prakash made it to the headlines when he was brutally attacked during the campaign but in reality the party stands no chance in the seat which has a total of 22 candidates.

Ashish Ranjan Sinha is a former Bihar DGP and though he belongs to Nalanda, he was parachuted as a Congress candidate at the last moment because under the seat sharing arrangement the constituency was given to the Congress and not RJD of which he was a member. He was then persuaded to join the Congress and contest.

LJP's Satyanand Sharma, too, is considered a weak candidate and the buzz is that the BJP is keeping its post-poll options open by not pushing Nitish Kumar too far.

The Bihar Chief Minister has been very generous in Nalanda and enjoys a massive goodwill following the development work carried out by his government.

Patna Sahib: One of the most high profile constituencies in the state, the fight here is between sitting BJP MP Shartughan Sinha, Congress nominee and Bhojpuri actor Kunal Singh and Dr Gopal Prasad Sinha of the JDU although there are another 16 contestants in the fray.

'Bihari Babu' Shatrughan Sinha has faced a lot of dissent as many BJP workers are not happy with him for totally ignoring the constituency. He is banking on his own caste Kayasths, who are in a majority in the constituency, and the polarisation of forward castes in favour of the BJP to sail through. JDU's Gopal Prasad Sinha, too, is a Kayasth and a very popular doctor. He is confident of weaning away a large section of voters from the BJP camp and is also banking on Nitish Kumar's good governance claim to win this largely urban seat.

Kunal Singh was not in the reckoning in the initial days but a string of rallies by Lalu Prasad in the neighbouring Pataliputra constituency has galvanised the RJD and Congress workers. Singh, a popular Bhojpuri actor, is betting on the Muslim-Yadav combine and a sprinkling of votes from the other backwards castes. A Yadav, Singh's father the late Budhadev Singh was an MLA from Bakhtiarpur and Danapur Assembly segments which are under the Patna Sahib and Patliputra Lok Sabha constituencies, respectively. The RJD-Congress combine is also hoping that a spilt in the Kayasth votes will help its candidate.

On the other hand Parveen Amanullah, even though from a politician-bureaucrat family, has struggled to emerge as a strong alternative.

Pataliputra: This is one of the two seats in Bihar where Lalu Prasad has taken a personal interest, the other being Saran in north Bihar's Bhojpur area from where his wife Rabri Devi is contesting.

In Pataliputra, which has some parts of Patna but is largely rural, Lalu's daughter Dr Misa Bharti is facing a tough challenge from two of his father's former aides - Ram Kripal Yadav of the BJP and JDU sitting MP Ranjan Prasad Yadav who had defeated the RJD chief in 2009. Ranjan Prasad Yadav had claimed that he was the 'khaanti' (real) Yadav and defeated Lalu in 2009. Ram Kripal Yadav left the RJD and joined the BJP after Lalu denied him the ticket preferring Misa instead.

It is a Yadav dominated seat and Lalu has spared no efforts to ensure Misa's victory even getting known gangster Ritlal Yadav to join the RJD and support her candidature. The result of this seat and Saran will indicate Lalu's hold over his MY vote bank in the state. A total of 20 candidates are fighting from the seat.

A win for Misa will be doubly sweet for Lalu as he would have decimated his two close aide-turned-foes with one stroke.

Munger: Here LJP's Veena Devi, wife of known strongman and murder convict Suraj Bhan Singh, is pitted against sitting JDU MP Rajeev Ranjan Singh alias Lallan Singh and RJD's Pragati Mehta.

Rajeev Ranjan Singh was once very close to Nitish Kumar but later the two shared a strained relationship. But in the last few months they have once again come very close. Like the LJP candidate Veena Devi, Rajeev Ranjan Singh, too, is a Bhumihar and is hopeful of getting the votes of extremely backward castes and Mahadalits, the two constituencies that Nitish Kumar has nurtured assiduously.

But one thigh that is hurting the JDU is denial of ticket to sitting MP Monazir Hassan from the neighbouring seat of Begusarai. As a result the Muslim vote is likely to shift to RJD's Pragati Mehta, a journalist. He is completely depended on Lalu's charisma to see him though. On the other hand Veena Devi is eyeing the forward caste votes along with the Modi wave to enter the Lok Sabha.

Even though there are 13 candidates but the fight is between JDU, LJP and RJD. The others are basically trying to save their deposits.

Arrah: BJP has put up former Union home secretary Raj Kumar Singh, the man who arrested LK Advani in 1990 to stop his rath yatra during his tenure as Samastipur district magistrate. Once considered to be close to Nitish Kumar, he joined the BJP a few weeks back and was asked to contest from Arrah even though he belongs to Supaul as he is a Rajput and the caste dominates the eastern Bihar constituency.

He is facing sitting JDU MP Meena Singh, who faces a tough time not only because her party is no longer in alliance with the BJP, but also because she has failed to establish a close rapport with her constituency and Raju Yadav of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). CPI(M-L) has had a very strong presence in Arrah and is likely to be Singh's toughest challenger. RJD's Sribhagwan Singh Kushwaha is also in the fray along with eight other candidates.

Buxar: RJD sitting MP Jagadanand Singh is on a strong wicket here after the spilt of the JDU-BJP alliance and his own party tying up with the Congress. He had narrowly defeated BJPs Lal Muni Chaubey in 2009 by just over 2000 votes but with JDU and BJP fighting separately, the RJD's chances have improved considerably.

The nomination of BJP's Bhagalpur MLA Ashwini Kumar Chaubey from the seat had seen party's senior leader Lal Muni Chaubey, who won from the seat from 1996 to 2004, to throw a fit and also file his nomination as an Independent candidate.

BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had to personally intervene and plead with Lal Muni Chaubey to withdraw after which the latter decided to move out of the fray. Modi even addressed an election meeting in Buxar on April 2 and referred to the place as 'mini-Kashi' to strike a chord as he is contesting from Varanasi, also known as Kashi, in Uttar Pradesh.

But the rebellion brought the fault lines in BJP's Bihar unit to the ground and its rivals are going all out to exploit it.

There are 16 candidates in the fray but the main fight is between Ashwini Kumar Chaubey and Jagadanand Singh.

Jahanabad: This is another seat to which Nitish Kumar has paid a lot of attention. Amrapali Group Chairman Anil Kumar Sharma is the JDU candidate from this seat and the party has been highlighting that his win will bring in a lot of investment to the state.

JDU's Jagdish Sharma won the seat in 2009 but was disqualified in 2013 after his conviction in a fodder scam case. He has lorded over Jahanabad for more than three decades and has gone all out to ensure Sharma's win.

The Amrapali Group Chairman is an IIT-Kharagpur alumnus and faces RJD's Surendra Prasad Yadav and RLSP's Dr Arun Kumar. Both the JDU and RLSP candidates are Bhumihars and Jagdish Sharma is working hard to defeat Arun Kumar to ensure that he remains the dominant Bhumihar leader in the area.

JDU's biggest worry is the Arun Kumar enjoys a lot of goodwill among the Mahadalits and ECBs/MCBs. RJD's Surendra Prasad Yadav is likely to benefit from a spilt in the Bhumihar votes.

There are 15 candidates in the fray.

Key facts:

Total Electors: 1,18,50,786

Male Electors: 63,78,809

Female Electors: 54,71,452

Others Electors: 525

Number Types of Parliamentary Constituencies:

General: 7

Total number of Candidates: 117

Total Number of Female candidates: 9

Total Number of Independents: 32

Parliamentary Constituencies having more than 16 candidates: 4