Patna: In the third phase of Bihar Assembly elections on October 28, 14 seats in Patna district will also vote. It is a no holds barred battle of prestige for the National Democratic Alliance and Mahagathbandhan who are trying to secure the maximum number of seats in the capital and its neighbouring areas.
The 14 seats include four urban and 10 rural areas with varied problems and their own peculiar characteristics. While areas like Patna Sahib are congested and crowded, others like Digha have both middle class colonies and vast rural areas. Paliganj and Maner are mostly rural with Fatuha having an industrial belt which is completely neglected.
In the 2010 elections Mokama, Barh, Digha, Phulwari and Masaurhi were bagged by the Janata Dal United while its then ally Bharatiya Janata Party was victorious in Bankipur, Kumhrar, Patna Sahib, Danapur, Paliganj and Bikram. JDU's new found friend the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad won in Bakhtiyarpur, Fatuha and Maner.
Apart from the six seats the BJP won in 2010, the party has also contested from Bakhtiyarpur. The results of the last Assembly election buttress the point that BJP has been traditionally very strong in urban Bihar. But at that time the party had to forgo the Digha seat to JDU whose candidate Poonam Devi won it without breaking into a sweat.
Now the BJP, despite having three other allies in Lok Janshakti Party, Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party, is contesting on 10 seats. Fatuha and Mokama have gone to the LJP while HAM has put up candidates in Phulwari and Masaurhi, both of which are reserved for Scheduled Castes.
With a long break between the second and third phase of voting due to Ram Navmi and Durga Puja, the BJP-led NDA is hopeful of bagging most of the seats in Patna especially following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rallies which have recharged the cadre which was a bit let down after the first two phases where the NDA has not performed well.
Even the Mahagathbandhan of Janata Dal United-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress claims the same pointing out the pro-incumbency for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. In middle class colonies of Patna, Nitish Kumar still enjoys a great deal of goodwill and is touted as a very good chief minister. The only thing going against him is his alliance with RJD chief Lalu Prasad.
"Nitish Kumar has done a lot of work. See the law and order. Now girls and women can move around even late at night. We go pandal hopping at midnight without any fear. I was in college when Rabri Devi was the CM. We could not venture out after sun set. Girls were pulled out of rickshaws by goons travelling in cars. Nitish should not have joined hands with Lalu," says Isha Chanda, a housewife in Shastri Nagar of Digha constituency in Patna.
But there are others who will vote for Nitish Kumar's party. "Teer per hi vote girega (I will vote for arrow, the election symbol of JDU)," says dry clean shop owner Raj Kumar in Raja Bazar area.
But these voices are countered by those who are spooked by the threat of "jungle raj", an euphemism to describe the lawlessness prevailing during Lalu and Rabri’s tenure as CM. In Fatuha, Kumhrar and Patna Sahib scores of people do not want Lalu and his party to have any say in power.
"We will not let Lalu do the back seat driving. Under his rule, we lived in fear. Anyone could be kidnapped or killed at any point of time. There was no help from the administration. Business was bad. Our families were not safe," says Ram Naresh Singh, a shopkeeper in Fatuha.
Similar sentiments are echoed by many voters of Kumhrar. "You can see that I drive my auto till late in the night. 10 years back it was not so. I was often robbed and beaten up by the goons. No doubt Nitish Kumar is a good CM but this time he is in bad company. I don’t want to relive the bad days again," auto driver Rajinder Paswan, a voter in Kumhrar, told IBNLive at around 10:30 in the night outside the Patna Junction railway station.
At a ration shop in Kumhrar, three youngsters argue against the Mahagathbandhan. They use the term “Mahathagbandhadhan” (alliance of the crooks) to describe the Nitish-Lalu partnership while claiming that the same alliance in power at the Centre and in Bihar will mean faster development.
But the battle lines are not only about the perception and the promises. Parties are also finding it hard to sell their candidates as many of them have won multiple times and there is a lot of anger against them for what the voters call “poor performance”. Even in Patna Sahib which is represented by BJP leader Nand Kishore Yadav in the outgoing Assembly, many voters are asking questions about severe water logging, filth in the markets and poor condition of roads.
Though Danapur is a cantonment but areas outside the Army control have piles of garbage lying and the lanes have been encroached upon. Asha Devi, the sitting BJP MLA, is facing a tough contest in the constituency. While her 2010 rival Ritlal Rai alias Ritlal yadav is not contesting this time but his younger brother Tinku Yadav is in the fray. While RJD has put up Rajkishore Yadav, the influence of Ritlal, a notorious gangster, runs across the diara (riverine area) and his younger brother is expected to walk away with a large chunk of Yadav votes.
Similarly in Mokama the 2010 winner Anant Singh, also known as Chhote Sarkar, is now in the fray as an independent after quitting the JDU. Even in Barh the JDU MLA Gyanendra Kumar Gyanu is now contesting as BJP candidate.
Digha once again promises an interesting contest with JDU spokesperson Rajeev Ranjan Prasad fighting it out against BJP’s Sanjiv Chaurasia. JDU’s Poonam Devi had won in 2010 but she joined the BJP a few months back hoping to get a ticket. But she was denied the same and her supporters are working against Chaurasia.
In Bakhtiarpur RJD has once again put its bets on sitting MLA Aniruddh Kumar while in Bankipur BJP is repeating Nitin Naveen. BJP’s Arun Kumar Sinha, is once again in the fray from Kumhrar and in Fatuha and Maner the RJD has put up 2010 winners Ramanand Yadav and Bhai Virendra respectively.
Nitish Kumar’s close aide Shyam Rajak is once again contesting from Phulwari but in Masaurhi both the main rivals are new faces. In Paliganj, the BJP dropped sitting MLA Usha Vidyarthi and gave the ticket to Ram Janm Sharma but the RJD has repeatied the 2010 loser Jai Vardhan Yadav. In Bikram Anil Kumar of BJP is trying to repeat his 2010 win against Siddhartha who was with LJP in last elections but is now a Congress candidate.
Full list of candidates in Patna district:
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