About 54 per cent of 1.03 crore electors cast their votes on Thursday in 48 constituencies that went to polls in the third phase of the Bihar Assembly elections which passed of by and large peacefully.
The UNICEF said an estimated 2.4 million children have been affected by the recent floods in the country.
Addressing his rally at Valmiki Nagar, the former Congress president said he was pained to see that Prime Minister Modi's effigy was burnt in Punjab on the occasion of Dusshera, and added that it reflected the 'anger' of youths and farmers.
The farmers in the state had last month gone on an agitation, stopping supply of milk, food grains and vegetables to protest the lack of good prices for their produce.
Effects of the pandemic were all too stark as the rituals were performed with face masks on.
Already battling Saturday's high intensity earthquake and aftershocks, major parts of Bihar were on Tuesday hit by thunder squall followed by rains hampering relief work.
Modi will start his Sunday election tour with a rally in Chapra, the political bastion of Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad. As per the itinerary, from Chapra he will go to Samastipur to address a public meeting in Housing Board ground, then at Gandhi maidan in Motihari and will end the campaign trip with a rally in Bagaha.
The flood situation in Bihar showed signs of improvement with major rivers maintaining a receding trend, even as four more deaths were reported from Darbhanga district, taking the total toll to 81.
The district administration has banned the sale of motor fuels without a permit from the district supply officer in order to stock reserves of petrol and diesel for vehicles to be used for flood-fighting and relief operations.
The floods have also damaged crops in 2 lakh hectares of land.
Official figures say 1.8 lakh workers have returned home to Bihar. Unofficially, however, that figure is said to have crossed 3 lakhs. Can Bihar cope?
Over two million people in Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Sheohar, Saharsa, East Champaran, Supaul, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Patna, Katihar and Bhagalpur are reeling under the impact of the calamities
In some Bihar constituencies, candidates named Ram are fighting each other.
Both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have refused to meet Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha.
Some of the 29 state-run Mahatma ka schools, as they are known till date, do not even have a single teacher.
The distribution of relief materials was badly hit due to heavy rains
The elections in this phase are seen as a big test for the Bharatiya Janata Party
Presence of Fadnavis will be keenly watched in view of recent tug of war between his home state Maharashtra and Bihar over death of Sushant Singh Rajput, a Patna born Bollywood actor.
Filing of nominations begins on Wednesday and ends on October 26.
One more person died in floods in Patna district, taking the toll due to inundation in Bihar to 10 even as major rivers on Tuesday showed receding trend.
This comes at a time when tensions between Kathmandu and New Delhi have escalated over a new map in which the neighbouring country has staked claim over some Indian territories.
Bihar Chief Electoral Officer H R Srinivasa said the Election Commission has established a three-tier security system for strong rooms (housing the electronic voting machines) and the counting centres. The inner core is being guarded by the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), then there is the Bihar Military Police (BMP) and then the district police, he told reporters.
At least four passengers were killed and 23 others were injured when the Delhi-Dibrugarh Rajdhani Express derailed at Golden Ganj station near Chhapra.
The polling for the sixth phase on May 12 covers 6 states and one Union Territory.
US company Monsanto's 'Kargil 900 m' maize crop cultivated over 140,000 hectares of land in Bihar has failed and the state government has ordered an inquiry into the fiasco.
Araria accounted for 20 flood deaths, followed by Sitamarhi (11), West Champaran (9), Kisanganj (8), Madhubani and Purnea (5 each), Madhepura and Darbhanga (4 each), East Champaran (3), Sheohar (2) and Supual (1), said Anirudh Kumar, special secretary in the state disaster management department.
A high alert has been issued in the state after the landslide in Nepal. Precautionary measures have been completed," said Bihar's CM.
The two leaders heaped praise upon each other for effectively implementing prohibition in their states, reports M I Khan from Patna.
A National Investigating Agency team on Monday questioned the arrested Somalian and a Hyderabad youth, who were caught while trying to sneak into Nepal, in connection with last week's blasts in the Andhra Pradesh capital.
By targeting the BJP's Ram temple agenda, Upendra Kushwaha has hinted that his days within the NDA are all but over.
The actor-turned-politician whose criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has grown progressively sharper, didn't figure on the BJP's list of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls.
Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Wednesday campaigned for the party's 'bahubali' candidate Satish Chandra Dubey in Bihar's Valmikinagar parliamentary constituency.
With major rivers in northern Bihar rising menacingly at several places in the state following heavy rains in catchment areas and discharge into the rivers from Nepal, thousands of people have been forced to abandon their homes and hundreds of villages have been flooded, officials said.
'You are beginning your professional life in a time of global turmoil, when economic systems and the earth's eco-systems are in deep crisis.' 'Societies across the world are struggling with the complexity of technological and social change happening at a speed that our species has never experienced before.' 'May you be more excited than frightened by the times we live in.' 'Precisely because the crises are so deep, there are also unprecedented opportunities for pioneering and brave work that can transform society, culture and economy to create a much better world for your children.'
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar -- who had visited the town on Tuesday and issued elaborate instructions to tackle the situation -- is scheduled to hold a high-level meeting in Gaya later in the day.
Two incidents of rape were reported in Bihar on Sunday where a mentally ill woman was allegedly raped by an official of a government hospital, while a minor girl was gangraped by two youths, the police said.
Kumar, who had been away in New Delhi since Saturday, returned to the state capital on Monday evening and held an emergency review meeting on the AES situation with officials.
At least nine people have been killed and 3 lakh affected by floods in Bihar as major rivers continue to overflow after crossing the danger mark at several places in the state.
In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, where it was introduced for the first time in any parliamentary election, around 60 lakh voters had opted for the NOTA option -- equalling about 1.1 per cent of the total votes polled during those elections across 543 seats.
After the death of 127 children from Acute Encephalitis Syndrome in Bihar in the last three weeks, the state government has finally woken up to the dismal situation. Delay on the part of the state government to identify the disease in time as AES and lack of awareness about the fatal symptoms have created havoc in the worst-affected districts of Patna, Gaya, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, East Champaran and Vaishali.
