Bihar Assembly Election 2020: Tejashwi Yadav looks to retain Raghopur

Tejashwi Yadav is fighting to retain this seat against his opponent Satish Kumar of the Bharatiya Janata Party, whom he defeated in the 2015 Assembly election

Raghopur is the family bastion of Lalu Prasad Yadav, the founder of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Lalu and his wife Rabri Devi have previously contested and won from this seat, and this time, his younger son Tejashwi Pratap Yadav is contesting from Raghopur.

After winning the election in 2015, Tejashwi became the deputy chief minister in the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) government which had Janata Dal (United) as its part (PTI)

Tejashwi is fighting to retain this seat against his opponent Satish Kumar of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whom he defeated in the 2015 Assembly election. Raghopur is part of the Hajipur Lok Sabha seat, and located in Vaishali district.

Raghopur has a total of 3,43,049 eligible voters, of which 1,83,832 are men, 1,59,212 women, and five from the third gender. Tejashwi Yadav won in 2015 with 91,236 votes.

After winning the election in 2015, Tejashwi became the deputy chief minister in the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) government which had Janata Dal (United) as its part. But this time, with ruling JD(U) is fighting the election along with the BJP as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which adds to the pressure on Yadav.

The late politician Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) has fielded its own candidate Rakesh Ranjan, who is expected to significantly dent BJP’s vote share. Satish Kuma had earlier defeated Lalu Prasad’s wife, former Chief Minister Rabri Devi, in 2010, with a margin of 7006 votes.

Kumar has told PTI that the good work done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the center and Nitish Kumar at the state will result in a sound victory for him.

Raghopur goes to polls in the second phase of the Assembly elections on November 3.