The stage is set for bypolls to Tarari, Imamganj, Belaganj and Ramgarh assembly seats in Bihar where more than 12 lakh voters will decide the fate of 38 candidates on Wednesday.
Voting will take place in a total of 1,277 booths, of which 1,196 fall in rural areas. As per figures made available by the Election Commission, about 5.73 lakh voters are women while 19 are of the third gender.
There are also 631 voters who are aged 100 years or above, while those aged over 85 years are 11,510. More than 2.40 lakh voters are under the age of 29.
All the poll-bound seats fall in the area south of the Ganga, considered a stronghold of the Mahagathbandhan, the INDIA bloc’s Bihar prototype comprising RJD, the Left and the Congress.
Not surprisingly, leader of the opposition Tejashwi Yadav, who spearheaded the RJD’s campaign, asserted, “We must win bypolls handsomely if we are to set the tone for our victory in the 2025 assembly elections.” However, the NDA, led by the BJP which is contesting Tarari and Ramgarh seats, is putting up a stiff fight, realising that it must maintain the tempo if it were to retain power in next year’s elections.
However, the pitch has been queered for both the ruling and the opposition coalitions with the entry of Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj, which is contesting all four seats.
In Imamganj, a reserved seat, where the by-election was necessitated by election to Lok Sabha from Gaya of Jitan Ram Manjhi, a Union minister and founder of the Hindustani Awam Morcha, the party has fielded Deepa, wife of his son Santosh Suman who is also a minister in the state’s Nitish Kumar government.
The bid of Deepa to retain her father-in-law’s seat is being challenged by RJD’s Raushan Manjhi, a former member of Zila Parishad, and medical practitioner-turned-politician Jitendra Paswan who has been fielded by Jan Suraaj.
In neighbouring Belaganj, Vishwanath Kumar Singh is making his debut on an RJD ticket, hoping to retain the seat his father Surendra Prasad Yadav had won many times on the trot before getting elected to Lok Sabha from Jehanabad.
The main challenge in the seat has come from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) which has fielded former MLC Manorama Devi. Jan Suraaj has fielded local social activist Mohd Amjad, in a clear bid to upset the apple cart for the two established parties, both of which vie for votes of the minorities.
Another seat that the RJD seeks to defend is Ramgarh, where its state president Jagadanand Singh’s younger son Ajit is in the fray. The bypoll was necessitated by the election of Singh’s elder son Sudhakar to the Lok Sabha from Buxar.
The BJP has given the ticket to former MLA Ashok Kumar Singh while the Jan Suraaj candidate is Sushil Kumar Kushwaha, formerly associated with Mayawati’s BSP which has some influence in the area close to Bihar’s border with Uttar Pradesh.
The CPI(ML) has fielded Raju Yadav from Tarari, a seat won by Sudama Prasad twice before getting elected to Lok Sabha from Arrah. The BJP has fielded Vishal Prashant, a debutant whose father Sunil Pandey is a local strongman and a several term former MLA.
Jan Suraaj had initially announced former Vice Chief of the Army Lt Gen S.K. Singh as its candidate from the seat but on account of some technical reasons he was later replaced by Kiran Singh, a local social worker who is known to be active in education sector.
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