More than 98 lakh people will vote in Bihar on Tuesday to decide the fate of 54 candidates across five Lok Sabha seats.
The constituencies going to the polls in the third phase are Araria, Jhanjharpur, Supaul, Madhepura and Khagaria, all currently held by the NDA.
The BJP holds Araria, where sitting MP Pradeep Singh's bid to retain the seat has received the main challenge from RJD's Shahnawaz, whose late father Taslimuddin, a former Union minister, had wrested the constituencuy from the saffron party leader in 2014, surmounting the Modi wave.
The RJD is also locked in straight battles with JD(U) in Madhepura and Supaul.
In Madhepura, from where RJD chief Lalu Prasad has himself won twice, JD(U) MP Dinesh Chandra Yadav's bid to hold on to the seat is being challenged by Kumar Chandradeep, who teaches English at a college in Patna, but also happens to be the son of late Ramendra Kumar Yadav, who had been a member of both Houses in Parliament.
In adjoining Supaul, the RJD has counterintuitively fielded Chandrahas Choupal, its MLA from one of the two reserved assembly segments falling in the Lok Sabha constituency.
The seat was earlier known as Saharsa, and the RJD, which last contested it in the 1990s, leaving the constituency for allies in subsequent elections, believes Choupal, a debutant, can give a tough fight to JD(U) MP Dileshwar Kamat given the electorate's track record of never rewarding a winner with a second consecutive term.
Jhanjharpur has gone to the Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP) headed by former state minister Mukesh Sahni, who belatedly joined the Mahagathbandhan and got three seats from the RJD's quota of 26, in a state where the total number is 40.
The fledgling VIP hopes to pose a tough challenge to JD(U) MP Ram Preet Mandal, having fielded Suman Kumar Mahaseth, a former BJP MLC who brings the promise of Vaishya votes which could complement Sahni's popularity among Nishads and make for a winning combination with the support of RJD's "MY" (Muslim Yadav) base.
However, the pitch has been queered with the entry of Gulab Yadav, a former MLA and muscleman who was the RJD runner-up in 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He has quit the RJD and is contesting on a BSP ticket.
To make matters worse, RJD national vice president Devendra Prasad Yadav, a senior leader who has won Jhanjharpur for the party twice, also resigned recently in protest against "a candidate imported from a party known for communalism".
Khagaria is one seat where the contest is, primarily, between two debutants. The sitting MP Mehboob Ali Kaiser, who won the seat twice on the trot for Lok Janshakti Party of late Ram Vilas Paswan, has been denied a ticket by the latter's son Chirag.
Chirag, whose party is now known as LJP (Ram Vilas), has fielded a confidant Rajesh Verma, prompting Kaiser to join RJD. Kaiser's son Yusuf Salahuddin is the RJD MLA from Simri Bakhtiyarpur, which falls under Khagaria.
The sympathy in favour of Kaiser, who is also a former state Congress president, could boost the prospects of ally CPI(M) candidate Sanjay Kumar Kushwaha.
Besides Kaiser, Mukesh Sahni and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav have campaigned intensively for Kushwaha, who, if he wins, would be the first CPI(M) MP from Bihar in three decades.
The total number of voters in the five seats is 98.60 lakh, with Madhepura (20.71 lakh) having the most sizeable electorate, but the lowest number of eight candidates.
Young voters are significant in number, with 1.45 lakh in the age group of 18-19 and another 22.84 lakh aged between 20 and 29 years. PTI NAC SOM
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