- Scrutiny from both ruling and opposition alliances will be extra sharp on a handful of seats today
- hey are the ones that had the smallest margin of victory in the 2020 elections
- Altogether, there were 52 seats where the margin of victory was less than 5,000
Of the 121 assembly seats in Bihar that go to polls today, scrutiny from both ruling and opposition alliances will be extra sharp on a handful of seats. They are the ones that had the smallest margin of victory in the 2020 elections.
Altogether, there were 52 seats where the margin of victory was less than 5,000 - the victories going to both sides of the political divide. Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal had won 15, Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United 13 and the BJP nine of these seats.
In around 12 seats, the victory margins were in triple and even double figures.
The narrowest margin was in Hilsa, a seat in Nalanda district, where the Janata Dal United had won by just 12 votes.
Hilsa is going to polls in this round. So are the constituencies of Matihani, Bachhwara, Kurhani, Barbigha and the Scheduled Caste seat of Bakhri, where the victors had among the slimmest of margins.
The constituencies:
Hilsa
In 2020, Krishnamurari Sharan, the candidate of Janata Dal United, had won over his nearest rival, Rashtriya Janata Dal's Shakti Singh Yadav by just 12 votes. He had polled 61,848 votes, while the RJD candidate polled 61,836 votes.
Shakti Singh Yadav was the sitting MLA at the time, having won a decisive victory in 2015 over his closest rival - Lok Janshakti Party's Deepika Kumari by more than 26,000 votes.
Barbigha
Nitish Kumar's JD(U) also won the battle for Barbigha in Sheikhpur district by a very narrow margin -- 113 votes. The sitting MLA Sudarshan Kumar - who had switched from Congress to the JD(U) had trounced his closest rival, Independent candidate Chandan Kumar, polling 39,878 votes.
Sudarshan Kumar is standing from the constituency this time as an Independent candidate. The JD(U) has fielded Dr Kumar Pushpanjay against him.
Matihani
The Matihani assembly constituency in Begusarai district also saw a very close contest between Lok Janshakti Party's Rajkumar Singh and Narendra Kumar Singh of the JD(U). The former won with a 333 vote margin and later, shifted to the JD(U).
Bachhwara
Bacchwara in Begusarai district had gone to the BJP in 2020, with Surendra Mahata winning over CPI's Awadhesh Kumar Rai by 484 votes. The two contenders are back in the race again this time. The Congress has fielded Shiv Prakash Garib Das, who came a distant third in the 2020 contest.
Kurhani
Kurhani in Muzaffarnagar district was also among the seats that saw a less than 1000 vote margin for the victor in 2020. The seat had gone to the Rashtriya Janata Dal's Anil Kumar Sahni, who slipped past the BJP's Kedar Prasad Gupta with 712 more votes.
Gupta, though, was back in the 2022 by-poll with a decisive victory and is now the Panchayati Raj minister in Nitish Kumar's government.
Bakhri
The Bakhri assembly constituency in Begusarai district is reserved for Scheduled Castes. In 2020, it was won by CPI's Suryakant Paswan who beat his nearest rival, the BJP's Ramshankar Paswan by 777 votes.
