Bihar will see several stalwarts, including Union minister Giriraj Singh, the state’s water resource department minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh, the BJP’s state unit president Nityanand Rai, contesting in the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha election on April 29.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Ram Vilas Paswan and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), won 31 out of 40 Lok Sabha seats in the last election in 2014.
Read: Full coverage of Lok Sabha elelctions 2019
The BJP contested 30 seats and won 22, LJP won six of the seven seats it contested and the RLSP, which is now a part of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), bagged all the three seats that it fought. This time the BJP is contesting on 17 seats to accommodate the JD(U), which also got 17.
In the opposition ‘Mahagathbandhan’ or Grand Alliance, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) is contesting from 20 Lok Sabha seats and the Congress on nine while RLSP will put up candidates in five seats, Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) and Vikasshil Insan Party (VIP) in three each. The RJD has given one seat out of its quota to the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (CPI-ML).
Sixty-six candidates are in the field in five constituencies going to polls on Monday.
Out of the five seats, the BJP is contesting on three seats of Darbhanga, Ujiarpur and Begusarai, Janata Dal(United) from Munger, and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) from Samastipur. In the Grand Alliance, Congress is fighting from Samastipur and Munger seats, RJD on two seats of Begusarai and Darbhanga and RLSP from Ujiarpur.
This election is also important as it will also decide the fate of former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students’ union leader Kanhaiya Kumar from Begusarai, who is on contesting on a Communist Party of India (CPI) ticket.
It is a prestige battle between the BJP’s Nityanand Rai and RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha, whose party was a part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) from until this year, in Ujiarpur. Upendra Kushwaha was also a minister in the Union cabinet. He is also contesting from Karakat, from where he is the sitting MP.
In Darbhanga, Abdul Bari Siddiqui of the RJD and BJP’s Gopalji Thakur are pitted against each other as they face the issues of caste and nationalism from the Lok Sabha seat. The GA was most affected by the ticket distribution as there were at least two claimants from the RJD for the seat. The RJD preferred Siddiqui over MAA Fatmi, who represented this seat four times. Fatmi ultimately resigned from the party.
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Union minister and BJP leader Giriraj Singh is fighting against Kanahiya Kumar, who is contesting on a CPI ticket, and the RJD’s Tanveer Hassan in Begusarai. After an initial reluctance, Giriraj Singh agreed to contest from the seat shifting from Nawada, where he is the sitting MP.
In the Munger Lok Sabha seat, the main contestants are Rajiv Ranjan alias Lallan Singh of the JD(U) and Congress leader Neelam Devi. Neelam Devi is the wife of don-turned-politician Anant Singh, an Independent MLA.
The votes will be counted on May 23.