Bihar Assembly Election 2020: All eyes are on these seats in Phase 2

After the completion of the first phase of Bihar assembly elections, the focus has now shifted to the second phase during which 94 constituencies in 17 districts of the Seemanchal region will be held on November 3. In the outgoing assembly, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) holds only 20 of the 94 seats that are up for grabs.

Districts such as West Champaran, East Champaran, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Araria, Purnea, Kishanganj, Katihar etc fall under Seemanchal. Besides, elections for the second phase will also be held in districts like Samastipur, Patna, Vaishali and Muzaffarpur.

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The third phase of the elections will take place on November 7 and the counting of the polls will be conducted on November 10.

Here are the key seats which will see polling in the second phase of Bihar Assembly Election 2020:

1. Raghopur

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, the chief ministerial face of the Grand Alliance, is seeking re-election from the Raghopur seat. He had won the seat on his maiden outing in electoral politics in 2015. His main rival is Satish Kumar of the BJP, who had defeated former chief minister and Tejashwi’s mother Rabri Devi from the same seat in the 2010 polls and had also contested in 2015 where he lost the RJD’s stronghold of Raghopur to Tejashwi.

2. Hasanpur

RJD candidate, the elder son of party chief Lalu Prasad and brother of Tejashwi Yadav, Tej Pratap Yadav is fighting the Bihar assembly from the Hasanpur constituency this year. Tej Pratap has moved out of his constituency Mahua in Vaishali district to Hasanpur in Samastipur and is pitted against two-time sitting MLA Rajkumar Rai of the Janata Dal(United).

3. Bankipur

The Bankipur assembly seat is set to see a contest between Congress’ Luv Sinha and the BJP’s Nitin Nabin. Luv Sinha is the son of actor Shatrughan Sinha who lost Patna Sahib to Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in the Lok Sabha polls last year when he fought on a Congress ticket. Incumbent Nitin Nabin is aiming a third term from the seat and has been the head of the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) till recently and has now been appointed as the party’s in charge for Sikkim.

4. Jhanjharpur

Jhanjharpur assembly constituency that falls in the Madhubani district will witness a tight contest between sitting RJD MLA Gulab Yadav and the BJP’s candidate Nitish Mishra. In 2015, the seat had seen the same contest. Nitish Mishra is the vice president of the BJP’s Bihar unit and the son of Jagannath Mishra who served as the chief minister three times. His late uncle Lalit Narayan Mishra was also a well- known politician.

5. Maner

The state BJP spokesperson and close confidant of Union minister of state Nityanand Rai, Nikhil Anand is fighting from the Maner assembly seat against two-time sitting MLA of the RJD Bhai Virendra. Nikhil Anand joined politics after a career in journalism and was chosen over Shrikant Nirala who has fought from the Maner seat since 1990.

6. Begusarai

The Begusarai assembly seat will witness a contest between sitting MLA Amita Bhushan and the BJP’s Kundan Singh. The CPI’s Kanhaiya Kumar, former JNU students’ union president, contested in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 from Begusarai. Notably, the BJP’s Kundan Singh is one of the richest candidates from the seats going to the polls in the second phase.

7. Govindganj

Sitting MLA and the Lok Janshakti Party’s (LJP’s) Raju Tiwari, Congress leader Brajesh Kumar and the BJP’s Sunil Mani Tiwari will be in a triangular fight in Govindganj. The seat is very crucial as the last time the BJP won this seat was 10 years ago.