Polling begins for eight Lok Sabha seats in Bihar amid tight security

Siwan/Vaishali/Sheohar, Voting began for eight Lok Sabha seats in Bihar amid tight security on Saturday morning, officials said.

The polling began at 7 am in Valmiki Nagar, Pashchim Champaran, Purvi Champaran, Sheohar, Siwan, Gopalganj, Maharajganj and Vaishali constituencies. It would continue till 6 pm, they said.

Over 1.49 crore voters will decide the electoral fate of 86 candidates in this phase in the state, they added.

The constituencies where elections are being held are largely rural with only 1,281 of the total 14,872 polling stations located in urban areas, officials said.

CM Nitish Kumar's JD is contesting four seats, including Sheohar, which was won by the BJP five years ago.

The primary contest in Sheohar is between Lovely Anand, whom the JD has fielded hoping to cash in on the popularity her family is said to enjoy among upper caste Rajputs, and RJD's Ritu Jaiswal who is tapping into the resentment among Vaishyas, traditionally BJP supporters, following denial of a ticket to sitting MP Rama Devi who had won the seat many times.

In Siwan, the pitch has been queered for JD and RJD with the entry, as an Independent, of Hina Shahab, whose husband, the late Mohd Shahabuddin had won the seat several times.

The JD, in a bid to avoid showing an excessive pro-upper caste tilt and consolidate its OBC base, has denied the ticket to sitting MP Kavita Singh and fielded a greenhorn Vijaylakshmi Kushwaha. The RJD candidate, Awadh Bihari Chaudhary, is a veteran leader, a several-term MLA and also a former assembly speaker.

The BJP is contesting three of the eight seats, including Pashchim Champaran, where former state president Sanjay Jaiswal is aiming at a fourth consecutive win.

The opposition candidate here is VIP's Rajesh Kushwaha, who was formerly with RJD and whose candidature is being seen as an attempt at OBC consolidation to take on Singh, an upper caste Rajput.

The BJP has also backed sitting MP Janardan Singh Sigriwal in his seat of Maharajganj. Sigriwal's bid to score a hat-trick is being challenged by Akash Prasad Singh of the Congress, whose father, Akhilesh Prasad Singh is a Rajya Sabha MP and heads the party's state unit.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.