In Bihar, which will witness voting in five of its 40 Lok Sabha seats in the third phase on April 23, the political scenario has undergone a pronounced change since last general elections in 2014.
The arch rivals of 2014 -- BJP and JD(U) -- are allies this time, Sharad Yadav, the key confidant of Nitish Kumar is now in the Opposition camp as is BJP’s Patna Sahib MP Shatrughan Sinha and RJD is fighting its first Lok Sabha election without its leader Lalu Yadav , who is in jail in a fodder scam case.
In the previous Lok Sabha election, the NDA had won Jhanjharpur and Khagaria, while the UPA had won the Supaul seat. The remaining two seats of Madhepura and Araria had gone to the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). This time around, both the UPA and the NDA have added more allies to their alliances and have let go of some seats for their new partners.
In the five seats -- Madhepura, Supaul, Jhanjharpur, Khagaria and Araria-- that go to vote on Tuesday, the JD(U) is contesting on three, while the BJP and LJP are contesting on one each. In the UPA, while the Congress has fielded its candidate on one seat, the RJD has got the lion’s share of three seats with one seat being left for the Vikasheel Insaan Party (VIP), led by Mukesh Sahni.
{{/usCountry}}In the five seats -- Madhepura, Supaul, Jhanjharpur, Khagaria and Araria-- that go to vote on Tuesday, the JD(U) is contesting on three, while the BJP and LJP are contesting on one each. In the UPA, while the Congress has fielded its candidate on one seat, the RJD has got the lion’s share of three seats with one seat being left for the Vikasheel Insaan Party (VIP), led by Mukesh Sahni.
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In Madhepura, four-time MP Sharad Yadav, contesting on a Rashtriya Janata Dal ticket, is facing a battle for survival against the Janata Dal United’s Dinesh Chandra Yadav and Rajesh Ranjan, alias Pappu Yadav, who is contesting as an independent candidate.
It’ll be a do-or-die battle for Sharad Yadav with state chief minister Nitish Kumar personally overseeing the campaign against Yadav, a one-time friend who broke away in 2017. If defeated, Sharad Yadav may find himself in political exile. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Pappu Yadav, contesting as an independent, had won from the seat.
In Supaul, Pappu Yadav’s wife Ranjeet Ranjan will be looking for a second term in office on a Congress ticket. She will go up against JD(U)’s Dileshwar Kamait.
Read: All you need to know about Bihar
In the Seemanchal region’s Araria, the only Lok Sabha seat in Bihar from where the BJP has fielded its own candidate, the party is relying on PM Narendra Modi’s charisma to ride it to victory. The BJP has fielded its former MP Pradeep Kumar Singh against Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Sarfaraz Alam, who had won the March 2018 bye-election after his father and sitting MP Mohammed Taslimuddin died in September 2017. The BJP will be looking for a repeat of Singh’s 2009 performance. Known to be a traditional BJP seat, the party has won it four times since 1991 with the RJD winning it thrice in this period. While the BJP is banking on the OBC and EBC votes, Sarfaraz Alam is looking to consolidate the Muslim-Yadav votes long with those of the Mahadalits.
In Khagaria, Mukesh Sahni, who heads the Vikasheel Insaan Party (VIP), is contesting against the sitting MP Ali Kaiser of LJP. Sahni will be looking to cash in on the sizeable Nishad voters as well as the core voter base of the RJD.