More than 6,000 local bodies representatives will cast their votes for the Bihar legislative council byelection for the Ara-Buxar local authorities constituency, scheduled to take place on Tuesday.
As no candidate withdrew their nominations, a total of six candidates remain in the fray for the byelection. The voting will be held at 25 polling centres across Bhojpur and Buxar districts, with 6,084 eligible voters, according to a district administration official on Sunday.
Interestingly, women voters outnumber their male counterparts. The number of male voters is 2,832, while eligible women voters total 3,252. Bhojpur district accounts for 3,779 voters, a major share of eligible local representatives, while Buxar trails behind with only 2,305 voters.
According to political analysts, the main contest will be between the INDIA bloc-backed RJD candidate Sonu Kumar Rai, son of former RJD MLC Lal Das Rai of Ara, and the NDA-backed JD(U) candidate Kanhaiya Prasad, son of Sandesh MLA and two-time Ara-Buxar MLC Radha Charan Shah, also known as Seth ji. However, the entry of Manoj Upadhyay, a JD(U) rebel, as an independent candidate may complicate the electoral dynamics.
Manoj had been an active JD(U) worker since the 1990s. The party expelled him after he decided to contest as an independent candidate. His entry in the fray may make the contest triangular this time, said a political analyst.
The three other independent candidates are Niranjan Kumar Ra, a resident of Rohtas district; Lalu Prasad Yadav of Saran district; and another Kanhaiya Prasad of Bhojpur, who shares the same name as the NDA candidate.
Given the high stakes for both the NDA and INDIA bloc camps in this byelection, senior leaders from both alliances have campaigned for their respective candidates. The filing of nomination papers saw the presence of JD(U) state president Umesh Kushwaha, ministers Vijay Kumar Sinha and Lesy Singh, and HAM national president Santosh Kumar Suman from the NDA side. From the INDIA bloc, RJD national vice-president Bhola Yadav, former Union minister Kanti Singh, and CPI(ML) state and national leaders solicited votes for the RJD candidate.
According to the Election Commission, voting will be held from 8 am to 4 pm on Tuesday, while counting will take place on May 14. The entire election process will be completed by May 15.
