Two separate accidents in Jharkhand, India, resulted in the deaths of two individuals. A truck accident in Hazaribag district claimed two lives, while a road construction incident in Chatra district led to another fatality.
Electoral fortunes of 1,302 candidates, including over half a dozen ministers in the Nitish Kumar government, will be sealed on Tuesday with 3.70 crore voters eligible to exercise their franchise across 122 assembly segments in the second and final phase of the Bihar polls.
'Rahul Gandhi has promised me to give a Congress ticket to contest the polls.'
Bihar's upcoming elections are marked by the significant presence of candidates from political families, raising questions about ideological commitments and democratic principles.
'Prashant Kishor is a businessman before he is a politician, and given that the expected average turnout for JSP candidates is 5,000 to 6,000 votes and since Bihar has a significant number of seats where the margin between the winner and runner-up falls within that range he will capitalise on exactly that to showcase his presence.'
There is no change in the date of polling in other four naxal-infested constituencies of Belaganj, Bodh Gaya, Gaya (mufassil) and Gaya (town), rescheduled for October 21 for security reasons
Political parties have fielded sons, wives and daughters-in-law of legislators who quit after being elected to the Lok Sabha.
Ruling parties held sway in most of the 13 states in the assembly byelection results declared on Saturday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies wresting seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan and the Trinamool Congress sweeping West Bengal.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
The juggernaut of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, which triumphed in three of the four east and north-eastern states that went for assembly bypolls on Saturday, was halted yet again in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress registered a six-on-six clean sweep.
Manjhi's political journey took a dramatic turn when, in 2014, he was unexpectedly anointed Chief Minister by Nitish Kumar, who had resigned after a disastrous Lok Sabha election.
Here's how the biggies fared in Bihar elections 2020.
Two Central Reserve Police Force jawans were killed while 10 were injured, five of them critically, when Maoists blew up a mini-bus carrying them in Gaya district on Tuesday evening.
A Central Reserve Police Force jawan was killed and 10 security personnel were injured in an encounter with Maoists in Balthar forests of Bihar's Gaya district on Sunday.
Amid tight security cover, polling began on Friday morning in the second phase of the Bihar assembly elections, spanning 32 constituencies spread over six Naxal-hit districts.
Maoists blew up a middle school and a mobile phone tower in Bihar's Gaya district early on Wednesday, police said.
Maoist ultras have asked Bihar assembly Speaker Udai Narain Choudhary to present the 'hishab-kitab' (a complete account) of the work he has done in his constituency.Choudhary, the first Dalit Speaker of the Bihar assembly, is a legislator from the Maoist-infested Imamganj in Gaya district. The Maoists have threatened that they will not allow polls to be held in that area and urged people to boycott elections in the constituency.
Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad's 'samdhi' Chandrika Roy has been nominated by the Janata Dal- United from his traditional Parsa assembly seat, but name of the former Director General of Police Gupteshwar Pandey is missing from the list of 115 candidates released by the party on Wednesday.
They entered the Bihar poll battle to protect and carry forward their fathers' political legacy, but many of them could not win their own seat though some tasted victory.
One such village, Mushantand , that comes under the Imamganj block in Gaya is in grip of an acute water scarcity this summer. This village is also part of the region close to the Bihar-Jharkhand border, known as a stronghold of Maoists.
"We have raided and destroyed poppy crops in 24 acres of land under the Imamganj police station," Omprakash Singh, a senior official of the Excise Department, told rediff.com. Singh said the Maoist had cultivated opium to make money for their illegal activities and continue their operations against the police.
Chaudhary is the first Dalit leader to occupy the august office.
Among the major political parties, chief minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United is contesting in 35 of the 71 seats, followed by its ally Bharatiya Janata Party (29), while the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal has fielded its candidates in 42 and its coalition partner Congress is in the fray in 20 assembly segments.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday announced a compensation of Rs 1 crore for the family of Narottam Das, the CRPF jawan who lost his life in a Naxal attack in Bihar.
The ruling coalition won 125 seats in the 243-member state assembly against 110 clinched by the opposition Grand Alliance to pave the way for a fourth successive term for Kumar in office.
BJP backed to the hilt Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as its leader in the state and rebuffed a rebellious Chirag Paswan, while acknowledging his Lok Janshakti Party as an ally 'at the Centre'. At a press conference which was attended by top leaders of the JD-U headed by Kumar and the BJP, it was made clear that 'only those who accept the chief ministers leadership will be deemed to be a part of the National Democratic Alliance in Bihar'.
Bihar assembly speaker Uday Narain Choudhary, who is contesting Lok Sabha polls from the Jamui seat, refuted on Friday that he entered into a pact with the Maoists for their support to win the election.
As Bihar awaits the results in the much-awaited polls, Rediff.com takes a look at some of those leaders who won and lost.
Voters will decide the fate of 456 candidates in 32 constituencies spread over six Naxal-hit districts.
In terms of electoral fortunes, in all likelihood, the status quo is not going to change in any significant manner. These six seats from Bihar are unlikely to give any clear signal to UPA, NDA or Federal Front.
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