Stakes high for Lalu-Paswan alliance in round two (Poll Curtainraiser - Bihar)

It’s a high stakes battle for power in round two of Bihar’s parliamentary polls Thursday with not just several heavyweights in the fray but also the powerful Ram Vilas Paswan - Lalu Prasad combine testing its alliance against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who is backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Congress has been left to fight it alone in the state, where elections will be spread over four phases. In round two, 13 of the 40 constituencies are going to the polls, with an electorate of 16.9 million deciding the fate of 189 candidates, including nine women.

Lok Janshakti Party’s (LJP) Paswan and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad, duo is said to enjoy overwhelming support amongst the Yadavs, a powerful backward caste, and the Paswans, a Dalit caste. Besides, they have a base amongst the Muslims too and, for the first time, are trying to win over a section of the upper caste by fielding over half a dozen candidates in the second phase.

Janata Dal-United (JD-U) chief Nitish Kumar is hoping that his gambit of announcing 20 percent reservation for Extreme Backward Castes (EBC) and Maha Dalits will pay off in this round. And, together with its partner BJP, it is aiming at upper caste votes as in the past.

All eyes are on the six union ministers testing the electoral waters — the RJD’s Raghuvansh Prasad Singh from Vaishali, M.A.A. Fatmi from Darbhanga, Akhilesh Prasad Singh from East Champaran, Raghunath Jha from Valmikinagar and Congress’ Shakil Ahmad from Madhubani.