All you need to know about Bihar for today's Lok Sabha polls 2014

Six of Bihar’s Lok Sabha constituencies will go into polls today. Located in the Naxal hit districts of the state, polling in these constituencies will commence under stringent security arrangements following repeated threats of attacks by the insurgents who have boycotted the elections. Earlier this week, three CRPF personnel were killed while defusing a landmine in Aurangabad while a huge quantity of landmines was recovered in Gaya and Aurangabad, making maintaining security an arduous task. [caption id=“attachment_1472985” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Ram Vilas Paswan’s son and former actor Chirag Paswan will contest polls from Jamui on a LJP ticket. AFP[/caption] The constituencies which will go to polls are Sasaram, Gaya and Jamui reserved for candidates from SC/ST quotas; and Karakat, Aurangabad, and Nawada. Yesterday, the Election Commission confirmed that a total of 80 candidates, including 10 women, are trying their luck for the six seats going to vote. There are 9,781 polling stations across these six constituencies. Bihar’s political landscape has undergone a spectacular prior to these polls. After its split with the BJP, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) is almost on its own. Thanks to its tie-up with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD, the Congress is poised to give the BJP-LJP alliance a tough fight in the state. Bihar has 40 constituencies with a population of approximately 93,29,760. The women voter-count in the state stands at 49,73,691, outnumbering the male voter population which is 43,55,752. The polls will be conducted in the state in six phases. Of the stare candidates in the state are Speaker of the outgoing Lok Sabha Meira Kumar, former Kerala Governor Nikhil Kumar and Chirag Paswan, actor-turned politician son of LJP President Ramvilas Paswan. In Sasaram, eleven candidates are in the fray including  “>Congress’ candidate - outgoing Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar. Kumar’s toughest competition is likely to be one of BJP’s new joinees, Cheddi Paswan. Paswan, a former JD(U) leader had defeated Kumar on two occasions when he contested her in the Lok Sabha polls from Sasaram. This was in 1989 and 1991. Consequently, Kumar went on to contest elections in Uttar Pradesh, only to return to Bihar in 2004. Then, however, she didn’t have to fight Paswan who had taken to contesting in the Assembly polls then. After her return to Sasaram in 2004, Kumar has won both times she ran for the polls. Kumar’s association with the seat doesn’t end here: her late father and notable Dalit figure Jagjivan Ram won the seat eight times from 1952-1984. Recently, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and RJD chief Lalu Yadav campaigned for Kumar in her constituency. Candidates contesting polls from Sasaram are largely counting on votes from Dalits and members of the other backward castes to sail them through in these polls. Nikhil Kumar, former Delhi Police Commissioner who quit as Kerala Governor to contest polls on a Congress ticket is trying his luck from neighbouring Aurangabad seat, dominated by the Rajputs. While the JD(U) has fielded  Baagi Kumar Verma, sitting MP Sushil Kumar Modi will be contesting on a BJP ticket. JD(U)’s sitting MP Mabhali Singh has been re-nominated from Karakat and remains the only sitting MP among the candidates to be contesting for the party out of the six constituencies to go to polls tomorrow. LJP President Ramvilas Paswan’s actor-turned-politician son Chirag, is debuting in Jamui (SC) and is pitted against Bihar assembly speaker and JD(U) candidate Uday Narayan Chaudhary. Sudhanshu Shekhar Bhaskar is the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate here. Pre-poll surveys show that BJP-LJP alliance is most likely to sweep the state, a turnaround from what was predicted for JD(U) two months ago. Caste is back as the major agenda for Bihar this election. As a piece on  IBNLive explains, the 2009 Lok Sabha and 2010 Assembly polls caste lines took a back seat to Nitish’s development agenda. But the article explains that this time caste dynamics will play a crucial role: “As caste dynamics especially in connection with elections go, Yadavs are unlikely to vote for the JDU as for them Nitish Kumar is responsible for Lalu’s decimation. While forwards castes were not so antithetical to JDU but with Nitish Kumar parting ways with the BJP, there is a clear division now. The BJP has managed to retain its core vote bank of forward castes and is also hopeful of getting Yadav votes in many seats where the RJD is weak.” However, despite Meira Kumar’s history and the fierce campaigning, Congress has a lot to worry about in Bihar, where BJP has played the caste card much better. However, JD(U) might turn out to be the biggest loser if poll pundits are to be believed. Though they have snapped ties with the BJP over the minority issue, they might stand to lose some Muslim votes. For Nitish Kumar’s party, which was counting on sweeping the Muslim vote, the newly-minted alliances by the BJP and the Congress can spell trouble. According to a recent Lokniti, CSDS-IBN survey a surprising 22 percent Muslims are likely to vote in favour of the BJP, 57 percent for Congress and JD (U) languishes at meager 10 percent. With inputs from PTI