E-Paper
Campaign ends in Bihar
Curtains came down on Monday evening on the high-voltage electioneering in the 12 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar going to poll in the final phase on May 5.
Curtains came down on Monday evening on the high-voltage electioneering in the 12 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar going to poll in the third and final phase on May 5.
With the exit polls predicting a hung Parliament, NDA's star campaigners like Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, Defence minister George Fernandes, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravishankar Prasad, besides JD(U) parliamentary board chairman Sharad Yadav and Union minister Rajnath Singh undertook extensive election tour to mobilise support for their candidates.
RJD supremo, Laloo Prasad Yadav, his Chief Minister wife Rabri Devi and LJP president, Ramvilas Paswan, went stumping around the constituencies to garner votes for candidates of the secular alliance.
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Banka DM, SP removed
The Election Commission has removed the returning officer-cum-district magistrate and police superintendent of Bihar's Banka district Rashid Ahmed Khan and KM Lal, with immediate effect following complaints of violation of the model code of conduct.
Elections to the Banka Lok Sabha seat would be held in the third and last phase in the state on May 5.
Union Minister of State for External Affairs Digvijay Singh, who is contesting from the seat, had lodged a complaint with the EC against the two officials.
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Conspicuous by their absence were senior Congress leaders, including its president Sonia Gandhi, who altogether kept away from electioneering.
The NDA appeared sharply divided during the campaign on the issue of imposition of President's rule in Bihar after elections with Nitish Kumar not only expressing strong reservation about it but also admitting that the promise by the alliance leaders, including Fernandes, to invoke Article 356 had benefited the RJD to some extent in gaining sympathy of a particular caste.
Brushing aside the reports of exit poll, the NDA leaders claimed that the alliance would stage a comeback under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Countering NDA leaders who blamed the Laloo-Rabri regime for all-round backwardness of the state, Laloo Yadav and Rabri Devi criss-crossed the constituencies castigating the Centre for discriminating against the state by denying it a special financial package for accelerating the pace of development following creation of Jharkhand.
Harping on their pet secularist theme they urged the people to throw out the communal NDA of power to save India from ruin.
The May 5 exercise will decide the fate of political heavyweights like RJD boss Laloo Prasad Yadav, his bete-noire Union minister for Consumer Affairs Sharad Yadav, Union Textile minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and Union minister of state for External Affairs Digvijay Singh.
The constituencies going to poll in the final phase are Madhepura, Kishanganj, Araria, Saharsa, Katihar, Khagaria, Balia, Begusarai, Bhagalpur, Purnea, Munger and Banka.
Other important contestants are former leader of the opposition in the Bihar assembly SK Modi (BJP), who is pitted against CPI-M's Sobodh Roy from Bhagalpur, JD(U) members of the dissolved Lok Sabha Ramjivan Singh, Renu Kumari and Dinesh Chandra Yadav who are seeking re-election from Balia, Khagaria and Saharsa respectively.
Controversial Independent MP in the dissolved House Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav is contesting as a Lok Janshakti Party candidate from Purnea seeking a fourth term, while his wife Ranjita Ranjan is LJP nominee for adjoining Saharsa. NCP general secretary Tariq Anwar is crossing swords with BJP candidate and former Union minister Nikhil Kumar Chaudhary in Katihar.
