New Delhi: As Bihar prepares to vote for its first phase of Assembly elections on Wednesday, knowing about the candidates you are going to vote for tomorrow is as important as your vote itself. There are 71 seats in the first phase of elections and a total of 1066 candidates are in the fray, out of which 114 of them are women.
The key constituencies that are going to polls in the first phase of the Bihar polls are Imamganj, Sasaram, Dinara, Gaya, Munger, Jamui, Bankipur, Mokama, Jamalpur, Chainpur and Buxar. The first phase of elections is set to decide the fate of at least six ministers of the Nitish Kumar Cabinet — Krishnandan Verma, Prem Kumar, Jay Kumar Singh, Santosh Kumar Nirala, Vijay Sinha and Ram Narayan Mandal. The key candidates also consists of former chief minister and HAM president Jitan Ram Manjhi, Commonwealth shooter Shreyasi Singh, Shatrughan Sinha’s son Luv Sinha, Pushpam Priya Choudhary of Plurals Party, BJP’s Pranav Kumar Yadav and Anant Kumar Singh of RJD.
Therefore, here’s some detailed information about key candidates contesting in the first phase of Bihar Assembly elections 2020:
Jitan Ram Manjhi: This former chief minister of Bihar is contesting from his home seat Imamganj assembly constituency in Gaya district. In the 2015 assembly election, Manjhi won the Imamganj seat by a margin of roughly 30,000 votes. Known for being one of the tallest Dalit leaders in the state, Manjhi is up against Uday Narayan Choudhary of the RJD and Shobha Sinha of the LJP. Before losing the seat to Manjhi, Choudhary had won this seat three times — 2000, 2005, 2010. Manjhi was earlier with the JD(U) and was Nitish Kumar’s surprise choice for chief minister in 2014, however, Manjhi ended ties with the JD(U) in 2015 and formed his own political party – Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM).