Bihar Assembly election results to be announced on November 10 (file)
New Delhi / Patna:
The second phase of elections in Bihar begins Tuesday morning with the vote for 94 seats in 17 districts. The leader of the RJD Tejashwi Yadav, the main ministerial face of the opposition, is one of the 1,464 candidates. Seven cabinet ministers under Nitish Kumar are also in contention, as is BJP leader Nitin Nabin, who takes on Congressman Luv Sinha, son of actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha. Over the past five days, Mr. Yadav and Chirag Paswan of the LJP have stepped up their attacks on the ruling JDU-BJP, targeting Nitish Kumar on corruption, unemployment and crime. The Chief Minister, visibly angered by the attacks, rejected them as politicians “by inheritance”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigned in Lalu Yadav stronghold of Chhapra and erected Ram and Pulwama temple, while calling Tejashwi Yadav, son of Lalu Yadav, “jungle raj ka yuvraj (prince of the jungle) “.
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The JDU-BJP alliance will contest a total of 89 seats during this phase, with the remainder going to NDA ally Vikasheel Insaan Party (VIP). The JDU will fight in 43 seats, the BJP 46. From the opposition alliance, the RJD will contest 56 seats and Congress 24. The left allies of the Mahagathbandhan will contest the remaining 14 seats.
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With 28 seats, the BJP will face the challenge of RJD candidates. He will face Congress in another 12, with the remaining six seats will be against candidates from the Left Party. NDA ally VIP will face RJD candidates in their five seats. As for Nitish Kumar’s JDU, they will face RJD candidates in 24 seats, Congress in 12 and left-wing candidates in the remaining seven.
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Tejashwi Yadav fights from Raghopur against Satish Kumar from BJP and Rakesh Raushan from LJP. His brother, Tej Pratap Yadav, also participates in this phase – from Hasanpur, where he faces a bitter fight against the JDU’s two-time MP Rajkumar Rai. Tejashwi Yadav, the political heir to Lalu Yadav, has drawn massive crowds to each of his rallies so far, with promises of 10 lakh jobs, infrastructure and growth, while criticizing Nitish Kumar for development and mismanagement of the fallout from the Covid lockdown.
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The vote will take place in Patna Sahib as well, hence BJP leader and minister Nand Kishore Yadav is aiming for a seventh consecutive victory. He will face Pravin Singh of Congress. The vote will also take place in Nalanda, which is the territory of the chief minister and which JDU chief Shrawon Kumar hopes to claim for the sixth consecutive time. He faces off against Gunjan Patel of Congress and Ram Keshwar Prasad of LJP.
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Other districts voting in this phase include Siwan, Gopalgunj and Begusarai. In the 2015 polls, the RJD won 33 of 94 seats, the JDU won 30, and the BJP 20. Congress won seven seats and the LJP, which established it as an independent unit this time, with the Party leader Chirag Paswan, repeatedly needle-punching Nitish Kumar, only won two. The RJD emerged with around 45 percent of the vote. The JDU won 40 percent.
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Prime Minister Modi, who held four rallies on Sunday alone, visited Chhapra – considered a stronghold of Lalu Yadav – and introduced the NDA’s “dual engine” model to counter Tejashwi Yadav’s claims on development mediocre in Bihar. He also jumped on Pakistani Minister Fawad Choudhary’s comment on Pulwama to accuse the opposition of doubting the “worth of the brave sons and daughters of Bihar”. He also made reference to building a Ram temple in UP Ayodhya and section 370 to attack Congress.
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Prime Minister and Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi, who this week attacked the Prime Minister and Nitish Kumar for commenting on his and Tejashwi Yadav’s family rather than talking about farmers or unemployment, will address two rallies each on polling day.
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The fragile relationship between the BJP and JDU – the subject of much debate in this election – has come to light, with the two parties largely holding separate rallies and rarely mentioning the other. At a rally in Samastipur, the prime minister and Nitish Kumar shared a scene, with the chief minister being called a “friend”. Prime Minister Modi said that “the NDA government is being formed under the leadership of Nitish babuIn turn, Mr. Kumar, at a rally in Patna, congratulated Prime Minister Modi for his assistance in developing the state.
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Nitish Kumar, who broke with the NDA after Narendra Modi was named his candidate for prime minister, to join him in 2017, has come under attack by opposition leaders Tejashwi Yadav and Chirag Paswan . On Monday morning, he hit back, describing them as politicians “by inheritance” and that he had “sacrificed everything for Bihar”. Like Prime Minister Modi, Kumar also called the RJD administration a “jungle raj” and said his government was the one that brought law and order.
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The third and final phase of the election – in which 78 seats vote – will take place on November 7. The results of the Assembly’s 243 constituencies will be announced on November 10, with Nitish Kumar running for a fifth term. At the first, held on October 28, a vote was cast for 71 seats and a turnout of around 55% was recorded.
