Bihar elections part 1: 121 seats at stake; key constituencies, high candidates | India Information – The Instances of India

NEW DELHI: Polling for the primary part of the Bihar Meeting elections 2025 started on Thursday morning throughout 121 constituencies in 18 districts, with over 3.75 crore eligible voters set to solid their ballots. Voting began at 7 am and can proceed until 6 pm, although polling time has been curtailed to five pm in some constituencies on account of safety issues.This part will resolve the political destiny of a number of outstanding leaders, together with RJD’s Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, BJP‘s Samrat Choudhary and Mangal Pandey, and JD(U)’s Shravan Kumar and Vijay Kumar Choudhary. Tej Pratap Yadav can be contesting on this spherical.

In response to the Election Fee, there are 10.72 lakh new voters, together with 7.78 lakh within the 18–19 age group, throughout constituencies with a mixed inhabitants of 6.60 crore. Presiding officers handed over Digital Voting Machines to polling brokers forward of voting day.Tejashwi YadavMahagathbandhan’s chief ministerial candidate, is contesting from Raghopur, a seat he has held since 2015. He faces BJP’s Satish Kumar Yadav, who misplaced in 2020. His brother, Tej Pratap Yadav, who shaped the Janshakti Janta Dal after quitting RJD, has fielded Prem Kumar from Raghopur whereas contesting himself from Mahua. The Jan Suraaj Get together, led by Prashant Kishor, has fielded Chanchal Singh, making Raghopur a three-cornered contest.

In Munger’s Tarapur seat, Deputy chief minister and BJP chief Samrat Choudhary faces RJD’s Arun Kumar and Jan Suraaj’s Santosh Kumar Singh. Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha is contesting from Lakhisarai in opposition to Congress’ Amaresh Kumar and Jan Suraaj’s Suraj Kumar.The Mokama constituency, which has been within the information following the homicide of Dularchand Yadav, will see JD(U) candidate Anant Kumar Singh — arrested in reference to the case — face Veena Devi, spouse of former MP Surajbhan Singh.In Patna Sahib, historically a BJP stronghold, the competition is between BJP’s Ratnesh Kumar, often known as Ratnesh Khushwaha, and Congress’ Shashant Shekhar.Darbhanga has drawn consideration with BJP fielding 25-year-old people singer Maithili Thakur in opposition to RJD’s Binod Mishra. Thakur, the youngest candidate within the fray, may turn out to be Bihar’s youngest MLA if elected.General, 122 ladies candidates are contesting on this part. The Jan Suraaj Get together has fielded 119 candidates. Throughout the NDA, JD(U) is contesting 57 seats, BJP 48, and LJP (Ram Vilas) 14. Amongst Mahagathbandhan companions, RJD is contesting 73 seats, Congress 24, and CPI(ML) 14, with pleasant contests on just a few seats.Within the 2020 Bihar Meeting elections, polling was held in three phases. The NDA received 125 seats whereas the Mahagathbandhan secured 110. JD(U) bagged 43 seats, BJP 74, RJD 75, and Congress 19.

It briefly held the promise of a lip-smacking contest after Prashant Kishor teased a possible matchup with Tejashwi earlier than lastly opting out. However this Lalu Prasad household bastion stays amongst Bihar’s most-watched seats as Tejashwi eyes a hattrick this time. Lalu’s son, the opposition alliance’s CM face, is the towering determine on this seat in Vaishali (Hajipur) district dominated by Yadavs. However the tag of a status seat did not translate into vital improvement for Raghopur. Its long-awaited all-weather hyperlink with Patna grew to become a actuality solely this June, when CM Nitish Kumar opened the six-lane Kacchi Dargah-Bidupur bridge, a part of an extended Vaishali-Patna highway. With no PK within the image right here, Tejashwi’s principal opponent is the person he defeated in 2015 and 2020, Satish Kumar. Now in BJP, he had received this seat for JDU in 2010, by defeating Tejashwi’s mom and former Bihar CM Rabri Devi.

A political greenhorn takes on a contender who’s chasing redemption on this seat in Darbhanga district. But when Maithili Thakur can financial institution on her movie star standing as a singer and web sensation in her maiden ballot contest for BJP, Binod Mishra (63) of RJD could be hoping the maths works in his favor this time since Vikassheel Insaan Get together (VIP), the celebration in opposition to which he had misplaced right here in 2020, is now a Mahagathbandhan associate. Brahmins at 25% and Muslims with one other 23% make up vital voting blocs on this seat in Mithila area, which Thakur has promised to rename if she wins. Her alleged present of disrespect to Mithila’s cultural image, the ‘pag’ or cap, sparked an argument. She has additionally been labeled an outsider, however could be seeking to construct on Union house minister Amit Shah’s attraction of ‘prachand bahumat’ for her, calling her a ‘daughter of Mithila’.

Bhojpuri star Khesari Lal Yadav — his actual identify is Shatrughan Yadav — has been grabbing eyeballs on his ballot debut, although BJP’s Chhoti Kumari could be fancying her probabilities within the seat that her celebration has received 3 times working since 2010 except for a byelection in 2014, when RJD prevailed. Saran district, of which Chhapra is a component, has thrown up each nationwide and Bhojpuri icons like Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) and Bhikhari Thakur, who’s referred to as the ‘Shakespeare of Bhojpuri language’. Khesari has whipped up the marketing campaign fever with de facto RJD boss Tejashwi Yadav and Samajwadi Get together chief Akhilesh Yadav holding rallies for him, however BJP’s personal brigade of Bhojpuri stars — Ravi Kishen and Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’ — ​​have weighed in to attempt to blunt his attraction.

This seat has not gone BJP’s approach in just one election since 2005 and the celebration has nominated the incumbent Jha to bag it once more. He faces two new entrants — ballot strategist Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Get together and Indian Inclusive Get together, whose founder Indrajeet Prasad Gupta is the challenger right here. An enormous rally held by Gupta that includes his supporters from the Pan and Tanti caste teams at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan is claimed to have drawn Mahagathbandhan CM face Tejashwi Yadav’s consideration and led to IIP’s induction into the Mahagathbandhan. However there aren’t any simple guesses as to the result right here: if Jha polled greater than a lakh votes in his successful bid in 2020, he’d additionally seen the rival RJD safe a equally resounding mandate in 2015, when he had been on the dropping aspect.

If the Lok Sabha seat of the identical identify is related to Yadav heavyweights like RJD founder Lalu Prasad and JDU’s Sharad Yadav, the meeting constituency has the document of by no means having gone with candidates of another group. For challenger Saha, it is a three-pronged activity: turn out to be the primary non-Yadav and girl to win the seat and discover a option to deny Chandra Shekhar a fourth straight victory. Underlining the importance of this district, CM Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav have each campaigned for his or her celebration candidates. Yadavs make up round 32% of the inhabitants, and Muslims round 11% with SC group at 17.5%. The remaining 40% belong to the extraordinarily backward caste (EBC) and ‘Pachpania’ teams, which have stayed closely tilted in Nitish’s favour.

This seat in Munger district made information when CM Nitish Kumar handed it to deputy CM and BJP chief Samrat Choudhary regardless of JDU having received it since 2010. He could have pitched the saffron camp’s most well-known face in Bihar in a socialist bastion, however the transfer revives a household hyperlink for Choudhary, whose father Shakuni Choudhary has represented Tarapur thrice whereas his mom Parvati, too, had received it in a 1998 bypoll. Choudhary takes on RJD’s Arun Kumar Sah on this agrarian constituency that has by no means elected a BJP MLA. Tarapur’s historical past is of radical opposites. Its pure magnificence impressed poet Henry Derozio and painter Nandalal Bose, who was born close by. Through the 1930 Civil Disobedience motion, police firing killed 32 protesters right here and later, in 1946, Tarapur witnessed ‘Partition riots’.

Mokama has been tense following the current killing of RJD supporter Dularchand Yadav throughout campaigning, allegedly by associates of JDU candidate and strongman Anant Singh, resulting in Singh’s arrest. That is seen as having put NDA, which has been focusing on the opposition with reminders of Lalu Prasad’s ‘jungle raj’, on the again foot right here. On the jap fringe of Patna district, Mokama has been on the windward aspect of improvement — it’s linked to north Bihar and Howrah via Rajendra Setu, the state’s first rail-cum-road bridge, and hosts an NTPC plant whereas a four-lane highway bridge was inaugurated by PM Modi not too long ago. Singh’s household dominates the seat — his spouse and brother Dilip have held this seat whereas Singh himself has received it 5 occasions, together with in 2020, however from the RJD camp. He has now switched sides.

Former Bihar meeting speaker, RJD’s Choudhary is a six-time MLA from this seat, whereas BJP and its earlier avatar Jana Sangh, too, have had an excellent run right here. Siwan district’s nationwide recall is available in equal measure for being the birthplace of India’s first President Babu Rajendra Prasad and being the turf of the late Mohd Shahabuddin, strongman and native MP. Below Shahabuddin, Siwan was seen as an RJD bastion, and Choudhary could be hoping to capitalize on previous loyalties. Dealing with him is BJP MLC and Bihar well being and household welfare minister Pandey, who’s making his ballot debut. The presence of Kafi Shamshir of AIMIM and Intekhan Ahmad of Jan Suraaj Get together makes the competition on this seat that has a sizeable presence of Muslim voters a difficult one to name.