Munger, Begusarai, Samastipur, Ujiarpur and Darbhanga will vote in the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha election on May 13 in Bihar with 56 candidates in the fray. Contestants have been fielded keeping in mind caste equations that are known to influence elections in Bihar.
From Munger, former Janata Dal (United) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh, alias Lalan Singh, a sitting MP and a close aide of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, is contesting against the Mahagathbandhan candidate Anita Kumari Mahto of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
Ms. Mahto, 45, married the main accused of the Nawada jailbreak incident and Apsadh massacre case, Ashok Mahto, 57, and got a ticket to contest. Since Mahto had served 17 years in prison, he could not fight the election.
In 2019, Mr. Lalan had defeated the Opposition’s Congress candidate Nilam Devi, the wife of bahubali (strongman) Anant Singh. Both Mr. Lalan and Ms. Devi are from the upper caste Bhumihar community. This time, the Opposition RJD has fielded Ms. Anita, an OBC candidate, hoping to pocket the community’s votes along with votes from the Extremely Backward Class (EBC) and Muslims.
In Begusarai, the firebrand BJP leader and Union Minister Giriraj Singh is pitted against the Mahagathbandhan candidate Awadhesh Kumar Rai of the CPI.
In 2019, Mr. Singh had defeated CPI candidate and former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who is also from Begusarai, by more than 4 lakh votes. In that election, the RJD had fielded Tanvir Akhtar who cut into the vote share of Mr. Kumar.
Begusarai has been a Left bastion and was once known as the ‘Leningrad of Bihar’. The constituency has a sizeable number of Bhumihar voters. But Muslims, Yadavs (OBC) and EBCs play a crucial role in deciding the fate of contestants. The CPI candidate is a Yadav and he is expected to give a tough fight to Mr. Singh.
Among the Bhumihars, the community to which Mr. Singh belongs to, the slogan doing the rounds is “Giriraj majboori hai, lekin Modi jaruri hai (Giriraj is a compulsion, but Modi is necessary)”.
Samastipur is a reserved Lok Sabha constituency from where the youngest Dalit candidate of the State Sambhavi Choudhary, 25, of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), led by Chirag Paswan, is contesting against Congress candidate Sunny Hazari, 33. Both come from SC communities and are children of Ministers in the Nitish Kumar-led Cabinet.
Maheshwar Hazari, who was also the former Deputy Speaker of the State Assembly, however, is not campaigning for his son and has said he will be with the Chief Minister. Ashok Choudhary is campaigning for his daughter Ms. Sambhavi.
In the last Lok Sabha election, Prince Raj, the nephew of then united Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan, had won by defeating Congress candidate Ashok Kumar by a margin of over 1 lakh votes. However, after Paswan’s death in October 2020, the party split. When the BJP made a seat sharing deal with LJP (Ram Vilas) for the 2024 election and the party got five seats to contest from, including Samastipur, Mr. Raj was dropped and Ms. Sambhavi was named the surprise candidate.
Both Mr. Sunny and Ms. Sambhavi are expected to give a tough fight to each other and are highlighting issues of non-development and recurring flood.
In Darbhanga, the BJP has reposed faith in its sitting MP Gopalji Thakur while the Mahagathbandhan candidate is the RJD’s Lalit Yadav. In the last election, Mr. Thakur had defeated RJD candidate Abdul Bari Siddiqui by over 2.5 lakh votes.
Mr. Yadav is the RJD MLA from Darbhanga Rural Assembly seat and is a long-time leader. In July 2000, he was a minister in the Cabinet of the RJD government led by Lalu Prasad and was accused of plucking out the nails of a Dalit truck driver and the vehicle’s cleaner. He was infamously called the ‘monster of Bihar’ by the media.
On May 4, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a public meeting in favour of Mr. Thakur in Darbhanga. The constituency has Brahmin voters and a sizeable number of Yadav and Muslim voters who can influence the poll result.
In the Ujiarpur Lok Sabha constituency, the BJP has fielded its MP and Union Home Minister for State Nityanand Rai against Mahagathbandhan candidate Alok Mehta (RJD). In the 2019 election, Mr. Rai had defeated the now-defunct Rashtriya Lok Samata Party’s Upendra Kushwaha by over 2.70 lakh votes. Mr. Kushwaha’s party is now rechristened Rashtriya Lok Morcha and he is contesting the election from the Karakat seat.
The RJD’s Mr. Mehta is an MLA from the Ujiarpur Assembly seat and has been a Minister several times in the Mahagathbandhan government. He has been a founder member of the RJD and is said to be the political mentor of Tejashwi Yadav. Both Mr. Rai and Mr. Mehta come from the OBC community and are considered suave leaders.
While Mr. Rai has highlighted Mr. Modi’s ‘magic’ and the NDA government’s welfare schemes, Mr. Mehta has campaigned against the “falsehood and propaganda of the Modi government”.
