Bihar Assembly Election 2020: BJP looks to wrest RJD-held Arwal

The BJP has fielded a new candidate, Deepak Sharma, instead of Chitranjan Kumar, who held this seat from 2010-2015 and was the runner-up to RJD’s Ravindra Singh in the 2015 assembly polls. The RJD, meanwhile, has allotted this seat to CPI(ML), which is a part of the party-led Mahagathbandhan.

Arwal is one of two assembly constituencies in Bihar’s Arwal district, Kurtha being the other. This assembly seat also comes under the Jahanabad Lok Sabha constituency. Ravindra Singh of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is the sitting MLA, with Chandeshwar Prasad, from chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) being the incumbent Lok Sabha MP from Jahanabad.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing his first election rally in Bihar, in Sasaram, on October 23,2020 (Photo by Santosh Kumar/ Hindustan Times)

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Chitranjan Kumar held the seat for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from 2010-15, while Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) candidate, Dular Chand Singh Yadav, was the MLA before Kumar. However, Kumar, who also won this seat in 1995 as a Janata Dal candidate, has not been fielded by the BJP for the 2020 polls.

Arwal will vote in the first of three phases of polling, on October 28. In 2015, RJD’s Singh had defeated BJP’s Kumar from this seat. While Singh registered 55,295 votes, according to elections.in, Kumar secured 37,485 votes, giving Singh victory by a margin of 17,800 votes.

The seat will witness a battle between the BJP and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, which is a part of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)-led opposition coalition, the Mahagathbandhan. While the BJP has fielded a new candidate, Deepak Sharma, the RJD has allotted this seat to the CPI(ML), which has fielded Mahananda Prasad.

Arwal has a total voter population of 253,000. Of these, 131,000 or 51.60% are males, while 121,000 or 47.71% are females. In the 2015 assembly polls, this seat witnessed 52.78% polling.

Besides October 28, the other two polling dates are November 3 and November 7. Counting of votes, meanwhile, will be done on November 10.

Bihar has a total of 243 assembly constituencies.

The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has fielded CM Nitish Kumar as its chief ministerial face. The alliance comprises, among others, the BJP and the Kumar-led JD(U). The Mahagathbandhan, meanwhile, has fielded Kumar’s former deputy, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, as its candidate for the state’s top post.

Besides the RJD and CPI(ML), the Mahagathbandhan comprises the Congress, among others.