Patna: More than 58 per cent of the total electorate exercised their franchise in the five LS constitutencies in North Bihar in the fifth phase. The state’s chief election officer, HR Sriniwas Rao, described Monday’s polling as peaceful, as the constitutencies were once notorious for violence and booth capturing in the past, particularly in Saran, Hajipur and Mujaffapur. In 2014, the voter turnout was 55 per cent. Muzaffarpur, which was represented by George Fernandes in the past, recorded highest polling-ever 61 per cent.
The son of a local leader was arrested at Sonepur in Saran constitutency for damaging an EVM at Yamuna Singh Middle School booth no 131. The security forces resorted to canecharge to disperse a mob outside a polling booth at Mahua in the Hajipur seat. At Dariapur polling centre, a clashe erupted between RJD and BJP workers. Polling started late in over 20 constitutencies in Saran and Hajipur constituencies following defects in the EVMs.
The key contestants whose fate was sealed on Monday included former Union minister BJP’s MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy from Saran, Chandrika Rai, the father-in-law of Tej Pratap Yadav, the son of RJD president Lalu Yadav, suspended AICC general secretary Shakeel Ahmad from Madhubani, Pashupati Kumar Paras, Bihar’s animal husbandry minister and younger brother of LJP president Ram Vilas Paswan.
In 2014, BJP candidates had won Saran, Muzaaffarpur and Madhubani seats, while the LJP had won Hajipur seat, and the Sitamarhi seat had gone to the RLSP, then in the NDA and now in the Grand Alliance. For the first time, two veteran politicians of Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan, are out of the electoral ring. Paswan, who was first elected to LS from Hajipur in 1977 opted out of the contest after 42 years on medical grounds and Lalu, who, too, was elected to LS first in 1977 neither contested nor campaigned, for being disqualified following his conviction in the fodder scam. His wife Rabri Devi, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 election from traditional constitutency of Saran, too, decided against contesting on medical grounds. She could not campaign for the RJD candidate, Chandrika Rai, whose daughter, Aishwarya Rai is married to Lalu’s elder son, Tej Pratap. Tej Pratap campaigned against his father-in-law.
