All You Want to Know About Bihar Legislative Assembly Elections
By – Anjali Joshi (Intern TNB)
The Indian state of Bihar is going to have its state legislative assembly elections 2020 in three phases starting from 28 October 2020 to 7 November 2020. The chief election commissioner of the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced on 25 September 2020.
The three-phase elections will be conducted on 71, 94, and 78 constituencies respectively and the results will be declared on 10 November 2020.
The elections will be fought on a total of 243 seats in which 122 seats are needed to prove the majority, the first phase of the election will be held on 28 October for which notification was issued on 1 October 2020 and the last date for withdrawal of notification is 12 October 2020, the phase will cover total 16 districts Banka, Bhagalpur, lakhisarai, Munger, Jehanabad, Gaya, Sheikhpura, Jamui, Patna, Bhojpur, Nawada, Arwal, Aurangabad, Kaimur, Rohtas, and Buxar.
The second phase will be held on 3 November 2020 for which notification was issued on 9 October 2020 and the last date of withdrawal of notification is on 19 October 2020, this phase will cover a total of 17 districts West Champaran, East Champaran, Siwan, Saran, Sheohar, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Gopalganj, Nalanda, Vaishali, Begusarai, Darbhanga, Patna, Khagaria, Samastipur, Madhubani and Bhagalpur.
And the third phase will be held on 7 November 2020 for which notification will be issued on 13 October 2020 and the date for withdrawal of the notification is 23 October 2020, this phase will be conducted in 15 districts East Champaran, West Champaran, Vaishali, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Darbhanga, Samastipura, Saharsa, Supaul, Madhubani, Araria, Madhepura, Kishanganj, Katihar, and Purnia.
These are the first elections that are being held after the COVID 19 outbreak which has not just ravaged the country but the world as a whole. Campaigning and rallies will be conducted both physically and virtually and with proper abiding of the guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI), as these elections are being held amidst the COVID so it will be necessary to conduct rallies with limited people.
Bihar has a total of 7.29 crore voters in which 3.85 are male voters, 3.4 are female voters and there are 1.6 lakh service voters too,
The duration of the polling is also extended by an hour so, voting will be done from 7 am to 6 pm.
The current tenure of the Bihar government which is headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar JD(U) will end on 29tn November 2020 and farm bills which were passed in the parliament later became as acts despite heavy protests and the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput who died on 14th June 2020 are likely going to play key roles in the elections.
As per the opinion polls, there are 9 ministers from different parties who can be the next chief minister of Bihar are Tejaswi Yadav from RJD, Nitish Kumar from JD(U), Sanjay Jaiswal (BJP), Madan Mohan Jha (INC), Dipankar Bhattacharya CP(ML)L, Upendra Kushwaha (RLSP), Chirag Paswan (lJP), Jitan Ram Manjhi (HAM) and Akhtarul Iman (AIMIM).
An ex DGP Gupteshwar Pandey who after his voluntary retirement joined Janata Dal-United JD(U) said he dedicated his life to Bihar and have struggled his whole life could not get the party ticket as he was denied of the ticket because on Wednesday JD(U) released its list of 115 candidates and his name did not appear in the list.
There are around 60 parties who are contesting in the elections with their respective amount of seats, but the main parties are headed by two major alliances of the National Democratic Alliance and Mahagathbandhan which is the largest alliance of Bihar and is the main opposition alliance. This time the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is comprising of Janata Dal (United) JD(U) on 115, Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on 110, Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) on 11, and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) on 7 and the Mahagathbandhan is comprising of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on 144, Indian National Congress (INC) on 70, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation CPI(ML)L on 19, Communist Party of India (CPI) on 6, Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) on 4 and all other left-wing parties. There are other notable parties which are contesting independently without any alliance are Lok Janshakti Party (LJP)on 143, Shiv Sena on 30-40 and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) on 7, apart from these there 4 other alliances of United Democratic Secular Alliance(UDSA), Progressive Democratic Alliance(PDA), United Democratic Alliance(UDA) and many other small parties contesting the upcoming elections.
Shiv Sena who is contesting for around 50 seats will conduct virtual campaigns and rallies and its Aditya Thackeray who is Maharashtra’s environment and tourism minister and chief minister Uddhav Thackeray are going to be the star campaigner and they will be followed by many other party leaders like Sanjay Raut, Gulabrao Patil, Priyanka Chaturvedi, and all others on the list.
But many uncertain events are happening before the actual polling like the sudden demise of Ram Vilas Paswan due to a heart ailment, he was the Cabinet minister of consumer affairs, food, and distribution and also the chief leader of the Lok Janshakti Party due to which Chirag Paswan son of Ram Vilas Paswan will have to contest solo. Lalu Prasad Yadav who was charged with the Chaibasa treasury case has been granted bail but he will have to be in jail because there is one more case of Dumka treasury pending on him and there is an emerging rift between Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and Janata Dal (United) JD(U).
In August 2020, the National Democratic Alliance conducted its many campaigns and rallies and the alliance was again joined by Hindustani Awam Morcha but the Janata Dal-United was continuously throbbed by Lok Janshakti Party as there is an emerging rift between Nitish Kumar and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) but LJP does not have any problem with BJP and later the LJP leader quit the alliance and said they will contest their all seats against Janata Dal-United JD(U) but not against Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and due to this lok Janshakti Party is contesting all the three phases independently of any alliance.
Among all in the latest development, there is a new formation of an alliance which is named as Grand Democratic Secular Front (GDSF) which is comprised of 6 parties, two from the United Democratic Secular Alliance (UDSA), Samajwadi Janata Dal Democratic JD(D), All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), three other parties, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP), Janvadi Party(Socialist) JP(S) and one additional party of Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party. This alliance has announced Upendra Kushwaha as their chief ministerial candidate.
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