Bypoll on four Bihar seats on November 13; Prashant Kishor’s party gears up to contest

The four seats where byelection would be held are Ramgarh, Tarari, Belaganj, and Imamganj

The Election Commission on Tuesday (October 15, 2024) announced that byelection on four Bihar seats would be held on November 13 for which results will be out on November 23. These Assembly seats had fallen vacant after MLAs representing them were elected in last Lok Sabha election as MPs. In this byelection the Jan Suraaj Party, founded by Prashant Kishor, would also plunge into the battlefield “to test its electoral-political strength”.

The four seats where byelection would be held are Ramgarh, Tarari, Belaganj, and Imamganj. The Ramgarh legislator Sudhakar Singh of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) was elected as party MP from Buxar in last Parliamentary election while, Tarari MLA Sudama Prasad from Communist Party of India (Marxists-Leninist) won the last Lok Sabha election from Ara (Bhojpur) seat. RJD leader and party MLA from Belaganj Surendra Prasad Yadav was elected party MP from Jehanabad seat while, Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) leader Jitan Ram Manjhi, an MLA from Imamganj bagged the Gaya (reserved) seat in last Parliamentary elections.

If party sources are to be believed, under the ruling National Democratic Alliance, out of these four seats, the Bharatiya Janata Party is likely to contest byelections on two seats - Ramgarh and Tarari — while the Janata Dal (United) would contest from Belaganj and Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) of Jitan Ram Manjhi will contest from Imamganj Assembly constituency. NDA had just one seat of Imamganj in last Assembly election while, three had gone to the Opposition mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) as RJD had won two seats Ramgarh and Belaganj and CPI-ML had won the Tarari seat.

This time the byelection on these four seat are likely to be significant as the newly launched Jan Suraaj Party of political strategist-cum-activist Prashant Kishor had recently announced to throw its hat in the electoral ring. “Before 2025 Assembly election, our party will field candidates in byelection on these four seats as well for which elections will be held in November. We’ll show our political-electoral strength in this byelection itself and let both the ruling and Opposition party candidates bite the dust,” Mr. Kishor said. Earlier, he had declared to field as many as 40 Muslim candidates in the upcoming Assembly elections next year on total 243 seats. “He may field one or two Muslim candidate in the byelection on these four seats,” one of his senior party workers said, preferring anonymity. “But this is only a likelihood,” he added promptly. Mr. Kishor had announced earlier to contest on all 243 seats in Bihar Assembly elections in 2025 which are likely to be held in October-November next year. “Either we’ll sweep the poll winning over 200 seats or, may fall to four-five seats,” Mr. Kishor had told The Hindu before launching Jan Suraaj as a political party in Patna on October 2. For the first year, he had announced name of a Dalit Manoj Bharti, ex-diplomat as the party’s working president.

Published - October 15, 2024 06:08 pm IST