Voting for Bihar’s five Lok Sabha seats has begun

PATNA: Tight security measures were in place on Friday morning as voting for the five Lok Sabha seats in Bihar got underway.

According to a top official who spoke with TOI, polling in Kishanganj, Katihar, Purnia, Bhagalpur, and Banka began at 7 am and would run till 6 pm.

In these five seats, more than 93 lakh voters—45.15 lakh of whom are women and 306 of whom identify as third-gendered—will choose 50 candidates, three of whom are women.

The Election Commission has extended the voting period in four parliamentary seats, including Banka, by two hours due to the persistent heatwave. Banka and the other three seats (Madhepura, Khagaria, and Munger) will now have voting hours from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

In the second phase, JD (U) has filed candidates for each of the five seats held by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Congress and RJD are the two opposition parties vying for three and two seats, respectively. The RJD candidates are running in Purnia and Banka, while the Congress has filed candidates in the seats of Kishanganj, Katihar, and Bhagalpur.
There will be triangular battles in Purnia and Kishanganj, while a straight struggle between NDA and INDIA nominees is anticipated in Katihar, Bhagalpur, and Banka. After his repeated requests to RJD to reserve the Purnia seat for him were met with indifference, Pappu Yadav joined the polling arena as an Independent. Akhtarul Iman from Kishanganj has been fielded by the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM.
Mujahid Alam of the JD (U) faces off against Mohd Jawed, the current MP for the Congress, in Kishanganj. In Kishanganj, AIMIM’s Akhtarul Iman has turned the competition into a triangle. Iman’s arrival is detrimental to RJD since he might reduce Jawed’s support base. Nitish’s secular image is a USP for him, even if Kishanganj is a mostly Muslim seat and Alam is an NDA face. Alam could have to deal with the anger of the populace, however, since many in the constituency have publicly said they will vote to remove the BJP from the central government. Conversely, Kishanganj is seen as a safe congressional seat. The party won the seat in 2014 and 2019, in spite of the Modi wave.
In Katihar, Congress veteran and five-time MP Tariq Anwar is facing off against JD (U) candidate Dulal Chandra Goswami. Prominent BJP figures, including Amit Shah, spoke at rallies to ask for support for Goswami. It will be difficult for Goswami, who defeated Anwar by more than 57,000 votes in the 2019 election, to overcome the anti-incumbency sentiment.
Santosh Kushwaha of JD (U), Bima Bharti of RJD, and independent candidate Pappu Yadav are engaged in a triangular race in Purnia. Even though Kushwaha rode the Modi wave to win the Purnia seat twice, in 2014 and 2019, voters may choose to make a difference this time. In Purnia, five-time MP Pappu is well-liked. Three times, he represented the seat in the Lok Sabha. In an attempt to challenge Purnia, Pappu united his Jan Adhikar Party with the Congress. RJD did not, however, reserve the seat for Congress. If Pappu pulls off a robbery in the seat of his choice, it won’t come as a surprise. In the case of RJD, Tejashwi might greatly benefit from her personal pleas to the public to back Bharti.
Ajit Sharma of the Congress and Ajay Kumar Mandal of the JD (U) will face off in Bhagalpur. In order to increase the likelihood that Narendra Modi will lead the nation as prime minister for a record three times, voters in the constituency may support Mandal once again. But a lot of people in the constituency are upset because Mandal disappeared after winning the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
It will be difficult for Sharma to take on the might of the NDA given that the Congress is running for the Bhagalpur seat after a number of years away.
Jai Prakash Yadav of RJD and Girdhari Yadav of JD (U) are engaged in a straight battle in Banka. With more than two lakh votes, Girdhari defeated Jai Prakash in the 2019 elections. But despite the widespread Modi wave, Jai Prakash became victorious in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Banka on an RJD ticket.