Patna: The high-octane electioneering came to an end on Monday evening in state’s four assembly constituencies—Belaganj, Imamganj (SC), Ramgarh and Tarari—as the blaring loudspeakers fell silent, marking the close of campaigning for the assembly bypolls scheduled on November 13.
Altogether, 38 candidates are in the fray for the four constituencies. A maximum of 14 candidates are trying their luck in Belaganj, while 10 are in Tarari, and nine in Imamganj. Ramgarh has only five candidates.
“While the main contest is centred around the NDA and INDIA bloc candidates in Belaganj, Tarari, and Imamganj; the BSP candidate Satish Singh Yadav is trying hard to make the contest triangular in Ramgarh,” political analysts, who visited the constituencies, told TOI on Monday. The newly floated Jan Suraaj’s candidates are also making waves in all the four constituencies, they said.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar, Union ministers Jitan Ram Manjhi and Chirag Paswan, State BJP president Dilip Kumar Jaiswal, and several state ministers campaigned for the NDA candidates, whereas RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his son Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and CPI-ML national general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya led the electioneering for the INDIA Bloc candidates.
Lalu, who has of late been avoiding public gatherings because of his ill health, addressed a huge rally in Belaganj, hours before campaigning came to an end, to seek votes in favour of the RJD candidate Vishwanath Kumar Singh, the son of Jehanabad MP Surendra Prasad Yadav, who was a several-term MLA from Belaganj before getting elected to Lok Sabha this year. Although the RJD’s main rival is JD(U)’s Manorama Devi, a former MLC, the party appears to be nervous with the entry of Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj, which has fielded a greenhorn, Mohd Amjad. The RJD fears that Jan Suraaj’s Muslim candidate may make a dent in its Muslim-Yadav vote bank.
In Imamganj, Union minister and HAM(S) founder Jitan Ram Manjhi has fielded Deepa, spouse of his son and state minister Santosh Suman. The NDA’s bid to retain the seat, falling vacant after Manjhi’s election to the Gaya Lok Sabha seat, faces the main challenge from RJD’s Raushan Manjhi, a former member of zila parishad. However, the presence of Kanchan Paswan (AIMIM) and Jitendra Paswan (Jan Suraaj) in the fray is also being keenly watched.
In Tarari, the CPI(ML)’s Raju Yadav hopes to retain the seat for his party, which was won two times by Sudama Prasad, the party’s current MP from Ara. Yadav’s main challenger is BJP’s debutant Vishal Prashant, son of don-turned-politician Sunil Pandey, who was the runner-up in 2020 while contesting as an independent candidate. The Jan Suraaj, which announced its foray into electoral politics recently by naming former Vice Chief of Army Lt Gen Shri Krishna Singh, who had to pull out because of technical reasons, has fielded local social activist Kiran Singh.
In Ramgarh, RJD’s Ajit Kumar Singh, whose brother Sudhakar Singh vacated the assembly seat after getting elected to Lok Sabha from Buxar, is trying hard to retain the seat for the party. The BJP has reposed its trust in Ashok Kumar Singh, who won the seat in 2015. Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati’s BSP, which was the runner-up in 2020, has given a ticket to Satish Singh Yadav, while Sushil Kumar Singh is the candidate of Jan Suraaj.