For Publication/Broadcast after 1700 Hours)
Patna, April 24 (UNI) The election campaign for the five Lok Sabha seats in Bihar came to an end at 1700 hours on Wednesday evening where the polling would take place on Friday.
The parliamentary seats where campaigning ended are Kishanganj, Purnia, Katihar, Bhagalpur and Banka.
The second phase of the election is the litmus test for the ruling JD(U), a major constituent unit of NDA as it is contesting in all the seats whereas from the grand alliance the Congress is contesting on 3 seats Katihar, Kishanganj and Bhagalpur and RJD on two namely Purnia and Banka.
The prominent JDU contenders in the second phase of the Lok Sabha election from NDA fold include the outgoing MPs Ajay Kumar Mandal, Dulalchand Goswami, Santosh Kumar Kushwaha and Girdhari Yadav whereas the outgoing Congress MP Md Jawed is again in the fray. The other prime contenders of Congress from the (Grand Alliance) include Tariq Anwar and Ajit Sharma.
Former JDU MLA Bima Bharti who recently joined RJD resigning from JDU and former MP Jayprakash Yadav were in the field as RJD candidates.
Of the five Loksabha constituencies slated for polling on April 26 in the second phase of the seven phased Lok Sabha election, Bhagalpur, Banka Katihar and Purnia were with the JDU and Kishanganj is represented by the Congress party in the parliament.
Expressing their confidence in their sitting MPs, JDU and Congress both have repeated their candidates.
JDU has fielded Mujahid Alam against MP Md Jawed of Congress in Kishanganj. Ajit Sharma MLA of Congress will be facing the sitting JDU MP Ajay Kumar Mandal in Bhagalpur, Veteran leader Tariq Anwar is in the fray as Congress candidate against the sitting JDU MP Dulalchand Goswami in Katihar, Jayprakash Yadav is fighting against the JDU sitting MP Girdhari Yadav in Banka.
However in Purnia where the battle has turned to be interesting as the fight there is triangular with the presence of heavyweight musalman leader and former MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav. Bima Bharti, RJD candidate and Pappu Yadav who has thrown his hat as an independent candidate were fighting against the outgoing JDU MP Santosh Kumar.
Besides Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the other stalwarts including Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, BJP National President J.P.Nadda, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar his cabinet colleagues and several other local leaders campaigned in the constituencies and addressed public meetings in support of the NDA candidates.
The Prime Minister during his campaign spoke against corruption, dynastic politics and assured to achieve a developed Bharat mission by 2047.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee President and MP Akhilesh Prasad Singh, opposition leader Tejaswi Prasad Yadav campaigned to garner the support for GA candidates.
Gandhi, in his rally raised the issues of women, poverty, unemployment and others.
In the second phase of the polling over 93,96,298 electorate including 48,81,437 male, 45,14,555 female and 306 third gender would be exercising their franchise to decide the fate of 50 candidates including 47 male and 3 female.
Of the 50 candidates, 5 belongs to JDU, 4 to Bahujan Samaj Party 3 to Congress and 2 to the RJD.
