Rabri, Sadhu’s fate to be sealed today

PATNA: More than 10 million voters in Bihar’s 48 constituencies will vote amid heavy security on Thursday to decide the fate of, among others, RJD’s former CM Rabri Devi and her politically estranged brother Sadhu Yadav.
Rabri, who is an RJD MLA from Raghopur, is contesting from Sonepur as well. Sadhu, who broke away from RJD after a spat with Lalu Prasad, is fighting from Gopalganj as a Congress nominee.

Others whose fate would be sealed in the third phase of the six-phase election process include ministers Brishan Patel, Renu Devi, Ram Pravesh Rai, Gautam Singh, Vyasdeo Prasad , BJP general secretary Janardan Segriwal and jailed JDU MLA Munna Shukla’s wife Annu Shukla.

Chief electoral officer Sudhir Kumar Rakesh on Wednesday said the administration is prepared to hold the elections in the 48 constituencies spread over West Champaran, East Champaran, Gopalganj, Siwan, Saran and Vaishali districts.

Although only some of the constituencies are ‘‘ critical’ ’ owing to Maoist presence, the security forces will man all the 10,814 polling stations. Mounted police, river police and para military forces besides IAF choppers would patrol the areas going to polls. ‘‘ Raids and searches are on to prevent flow of money and liquor in the constituencies,’’ Rakesh said and added live webcast will be done from 293 polling stations.

The Congress and BSP have fielded candidates in all the 48 constituencies while NCP has fielded 38 candidates, RJD 35, JD-U 24, BJP 24, LJP 13, CPI 10 and the CPM five nominees.

Of the 785 candidates, 65 are women with more than one women trying their luck from 18 constituencies. These include Patepur where four women are in the fray and Ramnagar , Bhore, Zeeradei, Marhaura , Vaishali, Maharajganj and Raghopur where three women each will have a fight.

Zeeradei and Marhaura have highest number of 29 candidates each while the lowest number of seven candidates are in Raxaul. The largest assembly constituency electorate-wise is Raghopur with 2.62 lakh electors and the smallest Kalyanpur with 1,77,368 voters.