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Patna (east): A battle of old vs new

Rajni Shanker in Patna

The Bharatiya Janata Party's Bihar unit president and sitting MLA, Nand Kishore Yadav, is facing relatively unknown contenders in the Patna (east) assembly segment.

Yadav, who entered politics in 1995, won the seat by a margin of 6,000 votes defeating his nearest rival Janata Dal's Ram Lakhan Yadav. In the last year's parliamentary elections, the BJP had managed to increase its votes by 53,000 votes in this assembly segment.

The ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal, the BJP's main rival, has fielded Gyanendra Kumar Yadav, who is contesting an assembly election for the first time. Altogether, 18 candidates, including nine independents, are in the fray.

Besides the BJP and the RJD, the Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), the Nationalist Congress Party, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party are in the fray.

The constituency has 2,20,835 voters - 1,01,336 women and 1,19,478 men - and is dominated by Yadavs and Muslims.

The polling will be held here in the first phase on Saturday.

Nand Kishore Yadav, the BJP candidate, says he has nursed the constituency for years and that the voters know his work.

The Nationalist Congress Party candidate, Ram Karan Yadav and the Ajay Bharat Party nominee, Sanjay Yadav, are banking on the Yadav votes, while the Bharatiya Jan Congress candidate, Sayed Shahjehan Ahmad, is wooing the Muslim community.

All three parties are contesting the assembly elections in Bihar for the first time. Though they had fielded their candidates in the last Lok Sabha elections, none of them made the journey to Parliament.

Campaigning is gradually gaining momentum, though the main thrust on door-to-door contact.

Assembly Election 2000

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