In the second and final phase of Bihar Assembly elections, the campaign for voting on 122 seats in 20 districts of the state will end at 5 pm on Sunday. After this, there will be a complete ban on any type of meeting, rally or road show in these districts.
The 20 districts where voting will be held in the second phase include West Champaran, East Champaran, Sitamarhi, Sheohar, Madhubani, Supaul, Araria, Kishanganj, Purnia, Katihar, Bhagalpur, Banka, Jamui, Nawada, Gaya, Aurangabad, Jehanabad, Arwal, Kaimur and Rohtas.
Given the highest turnout of more than 65 percent in the first phase of elections since independence, record turnout is expected in the second phase as well. In the first phase, women voted more than men.
The total voting percentage was 65.08 percent. The voting percentage of women was 69.04 percent while that of men was 61.56 percent. Meenapur seat saw the highest turnout of 77.54 percent.
In this phase, many ministers of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar are contesting, including Bijendra Prasad Yadav from Supaul, Sumit Kumar Singh from Chakai, Nitish Mishra from Jhanjharpur, Jayant Raj from Amarpur, Neeraj Kumar Singh Bablu from Chhatapur, Renu Devi from Bettiah, Leshi Singh from Dhamdaha, Krishnanandan Paswan from Harsiddhi and Jama Khan from Chainpur.
In the second phase, senior RJD leader and former Assembly Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary, State Congress President Rajesh Ram, Congress Legislature Party leader Shakeel Ahmed Khan from Kadwa seat of Katihar, and CPI (ML) Legislature Party leader Mehboob Alam are candidates from the Grand Alliance.
In the second phase, the fate of 53 candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the constituent parties of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is to be decided. In the first phase, the fate of 48 BJP candidates has been sealed in EVMs. 44 candidates of Janata Dal (United), 15 of Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), four of Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLMO) and six of Hindustani Awam Morcha (Hum) are also in the fray in the second phase.
NDA’s star campaigners include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, BJP President JP Nadda, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, BJP’s Bihar election in-charge and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Ministers Chirag Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi.
On the other hand, in the grand alliance, RJD is contesting on 72 seats, Congress on 37 seats, Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) on 10 seats and other allies are contesting on five seats. The campaign was commanded by RJD leader and Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, VIP chief Mukesh Sahni and Communist Party of India (ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya.
In the second phase, voting will be held on 122 assembly seats in 20 districts of the state from 7 am on November 11. There are 1302 candidates in the fray in this phase, which include 136 women, 1165 men and one third gender candidate. A total of 3,70,13,556 voters will exercise their franchise.
In this phase, 45,399 polling stations have been created, of which 40,073 are rural and 5326 urban booths. In terms of area, the smallest assembly constituency of this phase is Bhagalpur (23.887 sq km), while the largest is Chainpur (1814.15 sq km). According to the number of voters, Makhdumpur has the lowest number of voters at 2,47,574, and Hisua has the highest number of voters at 3,67,667.
In the second phase, the most sensitive assembly constituencies and booths have been identified. Voting will be held at seven booths of Imamganj assembly constituency till 3 pm, and at 354 booths till 4 pm. Voting will be held at 200 booths of Bodh Gaya till 4 pm and at 106 booths till 5 pm. Voting will be conducted till 4 pm at all the booths of Chainpur, Rajauli, Govindpur, Sikandar, Jamui, Jhajha and Chakai.