The first phase of the Bihar Assembly elections began on Wednesday morning, starting at 7 am and continuing till evening — 6 pm in most constituencies and 5 pm in a few. Nearly 3.75 crore voters are expected to cast their ballots today, deciding the fate of 1,314 candidates across 18 districts.
Voting in this phase includes Patna, Darbhanga, Madhepura, Saharsa, Muzaffarpur, and a number of districts across north and south Bihar, including Gopalganj, Siwan, Saran, Vaishali, and Munger.
Some of the keenly watched contests are unfolding in Raghopur, where RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav is eyeing a third consecutive win, Mahua, where his brother Tej Pratap Yadav is in the fray, and Tarapur, represented by Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary. Tejashwi Yadav, the chief ministerial face of the INDIA bloc, and BJP’s Samrat Choudhary are among the big names that define this phase of the electoral battle.
In the previous 2020 assembly elections, the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan held a narrow advantage in these areas, securing 63 seats to the NDA’s 55. This time, the campaign narratives have sharply diverged — while the RJD and Congress have centered their pitch on unemployment, deteriorating law and order, and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s alleged subservience to the BJP, the NDA has revived its familiar “jungle raj” refrain to corner the opposition.
Adding a new dimension to this political contest is the entry of Prashant Kishor’s Jan Suraaj Party, which is making its electoral debut and positioning itself as an alternative to both traditional alliances.
