Bihar elections: Campaigning for 1st phase ends

 

 

 

THE high-voltage campaign for the first phase of the Bihar Assembly elections, covering 121 constituencies, ended on Tuesday evening, after weeks of acrimonious exchanges, personal attacks, and divisive rhetoric. Electioneering began in earnest a couple of weeks after the polls for the 243-member Assembly were announced on October 6, with most parties having finalised their seats and candidates, and the momentum peaked after the festivities of Diwali and Chhath were over. Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the blitzkrieg on behalf of the ruling NDA, with as many as eight rallies, two of which were held on the penultimate day of campaigning, besides a roadshow in Patna, and digital interactions with booth-level workers, and also with women, on the final day of electioneering.

 

Modi had begun his campaign with a rally at Samastipur, where he also visited the ancestral house of Bharat Ratna Karpoori Thakur. He shared the stage with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the JD(U) president, who vies with arch-rival Lalu Prasad, the RJD president, in claiming to be the true ideological heir to the EBC (extremely backwards classes) icon. The BJP, which is known for running a star-studded campaign, pulled out its famed heavy artillery. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who has held more than 20 rallies so far, sometimes staying put in the state for days, was assisted by Cabinet colleagues like fellow former party president Rajnath Singh and the current chief Jagat Prakash Nadda. Regional satraps like Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his counterparts in BJP-ruled States like Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Delhi -- Himanta Biswa Sarma, Mohan Yadav, Mohan Charan Manjhi and Rekha Gupta, respectively -- were also called into action.

 

The prominent seats that will go to the polls in the first phase are Tejashwi Yadav’s Raghopur, Mahua, from where his brother Tej Pratap Yadav is trying his luck with a new political outfit, and Tarapur, from where Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary is fighting the elections. The other seats in focus in this phase are Alinagar, from where singer Maithili Thakur is fighting the elections on a BJP ticket, Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha’s Lakhisarai, Mokama -- where the JD(U) candidate is strongman Anant Singh, who has been arrested in the murder case of his opponent Dular Chand Yadav, and Raghunathpur, where the RJD candidate is late gangster-turned-politician Md Shahabuddin’s son Osama Shahab. Other Union Ministers who campaigned in the poll-bound State included Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Piyush Goyal. Former Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Anurag Thakur, recognised as crowd pullers, were also seen on the campaign trail. Among the notable campaigners of the Congress were Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who canvassed in the State for the first time, and has held three rallies and a roadshow so far, and party president Mallikarjun Kharge.

 

The election campaign was also marred by a one-off, albeit high-profile, incident of violence. Gangster-turned-politician Dular Chand Yadav, who had aligned with Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party, was allegedly killed in a skirmish with supporters of Anant Singh, the JD(U) candidate from Mokama. The killing had triggered fears of a fresh round of gang-war in the volatile constituency, which is witnessing a straight battle between Singh and RJD’s Veena Devi, whose husband Suraj Bhan has been his old rival in politics and the underworld. Subsequently, the police lodged a case, and Singh, along with a number of his supporters, was arrested and remanded by a court to 14 days in judicial custody. The sudden development involving a candidate of the ruling party seems to have annoyed its top leadership. Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh “Lalan”, a former JD(U) president, was booked for asking supporters in Mokama, which falls under his Mokama Lok Sabha constituency, to ensure “opponents stay indoors on the day of voting”. Polling for the remaining 122 seats will be held on November 11 in the second phase, and the votes will be counted on November 14.