PATNA: With voting for 24 local authority seats of the Bihar legislative council is over on Monday, focus of all leading political parties of the state have now shifted to the by-polls in Bochahan assembly constituency in Muzaffarpur district.
Many prominent leaders of the BJP, the RJD and the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) on Wednesday held a series of election meetings in different parts of Bochahan constituency to woo the voters in favour of their respective candidates.
While state’s deputy chief minister and senior BJP leader Tarkishore Prasad addressed a ‘Jan Chaupal’ in Jhapha gram-panchayat in favour of the party candidate Baby Kumari, the RJD’s senior leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav addressed an election rally at Rohua high school maidan (Mushahari block) to seek votes in favour of his party candidate Amar Kumar Paswan, who is son of the former VIP MLA Mufasir Paswan. The by-election in this reserved constituency was necessitated following the untimely death of the VIP MLA Musafir Paswan.
RJD candidate Amar Kumar Paswan (in middle) seeking votes in Bochahan by-polls.
Similarly, the VIP president Mukesh Sahani on Wednesday held a series of election meetings at different villages under Bara Jagannath, Rohua, Manika Harikesh and Manika Vishuunpur gram-panchayat of Bochahan constituency.
According to a rough estimate, more than 250 leaders of the BJP, the VIP and the RJD are staying at different hotels, guesthouses and lodges of the nearby Muzaffarpur town. Most of the hotels in Muzaffarpur town are housefull because of the political leaders. These leaders leave the hotel room in the morning, go to different parts of Bochahan, hardly 12 to 15 km from Muzaffarpur, to seek vote in favour of their party’s candidates and return to the hotels by evening.
Though altogether 13 candidates are in the fray in Bochahan, the main contest is likely to be centered around the BJP’s Baby Kumari, the RJD’s Amar Kumar Paswan and the VIP’s nominee Geeta Kumari, who is daughter of former minister Ramai Ram who represented the same Bochahan seat in the state assembly for a record consecutive eight times from 1980 to 2010 on symbol of different political parties.
Ramai, who unsuccessfully contested the 2015 and 2020 assembly polls as the RJD candidate, this year wanted to field his daughter and former MLC Geeta Kumari on the symbol of Lalu Prasad’s party. But the RJD’s de facto leader Tejashwi preferred to field Amar Paswan, son of Musafir, on his party symbol. Amar was in the VIP party till he was offered a symbol by the RJD a few days before the filing of nomination. As the VIP’s Amar went to the RJD, Ramai rushed to the VIP chief Mukesh Sahani and procured the VIP symbol for her daughter Geeta.
The BJP’s candidate Baby Kumari had won Bochahan seat as an Independent candidate in 2015 assembly polls, defeating the RJD’s Ramai by a margin of more than 24,000 votes. In 2020, the VIP’s Musafir Paswan won the seat defeating the RJD’s Ramai by a margin of around 11,000 votes.
Polling in Bochahan will be held on April 12 while the counting of votes will be done on April 16.
