The bypoll for the Araria Lok Sabha seat, that will see a keen contest between the National Democratic Alliance and “Mahagathbandhan” (Grand Alliance) candidates, will be held on Sunday.
While the NDA’s candidate is highlighting the development works done by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the RJD candidate, who is hoping to draw the Extremely Backward Class (EBC) votes to its traditional Muslim-Yadav electoral bank, is relying on Mr. Kumar’s “betrayal” of the Grand Alliance, making it his selling point of the campaign.
State BJP President Nityanand Rai, addressing a public meeting on Friday, said that Araria would turn into “an Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) hub if Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) wins the by-poll”. Araria is a Muslim-dominated constituency (41% of the population) of north-east Bihar in Seemanchal area. The bypoll was necessitated by the death of RJD MP Mohammed Taslimuddin. RJD has fielded Sarfaraj Alam, son of Mohd Taslimuddin, while the BJP has given the ticket to Pradeep Kumar Singh, who won the Araria Lok Sabha seat in 2009 parliamentary poll.
Earlier on Wednesday, at a public meeting in Raniganj of Araria, senior State BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi said that “Nitish Kumar’s development works in Bihar and Narendra Modi’s across the country would continue in Araria too if the BJP candidate wins the bypoll. Mr. Modi reminded the people how both Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar had provided the much-needed relief to the flood-affected people of the district. To scotch rumours that local party leaders were scuttling the chances of Pradeep Singh, Mr. Modi pointed to party MLA Vijay Kumar Mandal and said he too had come with them. In 2014, Vijay Kumar Mandal had contested the Araria Lok Sabha seat on JD(U) ticket and got 22.73% vote. He is now BJP MLA from Sikti assembly constituency and was hoping to get party ticket for the Lok Sabha by-poll.
“If Pradeep Kumar Singh wins the seat, the party will repeat him in 2019 Lok Sabha poll as well. But if he loses the poll, the chances of leaders like Vijay Kumar Mandal to get ticket in 2019 gets brighter”, explains Nitesh Kumar of Raniganj. Besides Mr. Mandal, some other local BJP leaders too are said to be scuttling the chances of the party nominee Pradeep Kumar Singh. Even the local unit of The Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), student wing of the BJP, has allegedly set-off campaign on social media against BJP nominee saying, “ candidate hai chhota, vikalp hai NOTA (the candidate is not worthy, choice for you is NOTA)”.
A few kilometres away, at an another public meeting at Haat Maidan in Simraha of Forbesganj block, Mahagathbandhan leaders like rebel JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav, Ali Anwar, former five-time MP from the constituency Sukhdeo Paswan and others slammed chief minister Nitish Kumar for his “betrayal” of the RJD and attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi government for practicing “divisive politics.”
