All eyes on Lalu's boys in Phase III

Voting for 50 seats in six Bihar districts today

Elaborate security arrangements have been made for the third phase of Bihar election on Wednesday.

Voting will take place in 50 constituencies spread over six districts in — Buxar, Bhojpur, Patna, Vaishali, Nalanda and Saran.

The most keenly watched poll will be in Vaishali, from where Lalu Prasad’s two sons – Tej Pratap and Tejaswi Yadav are making their electoral debut from Mahua and Raghopur respectively. Another constituency which will draw everyone’s attention is Brahmpur from where former Union minister Dr C P Thakur’s son Vivek Thakur is in the fray.

Among the dozen hopefuls for the CM’s post, senior BJP leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Nand Kishore Yadav is contesting from Patna Sahib, a constituency he has been representing for the last two decades.

Ahead of polling in Vaishali on Wednesday, Lalu’s daughter Misa Bharti launched a blistering attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, she said, had used derogatory terms for her.
“Modi should apologise for what he said at Naubatpur,” a fiery Misa said on Tuesday.

“On the one hand, the PM says beti bachao, beti padhao. And on the other hand, uses terms like Beti ko ‘set’ nahin kar payee Lalu ji. A father does not have to ‘set’ his daughter.

But how can a man, who has shown scant regard for his wife and mother, understand this,” Misa made an emotive poll issue hours before Bihar electorate cast their votes.

Tight security

Nearly 30,000 securitymen have been deployed for 14 Assembly constituencies in Patna alone.

“Flying squads led by magistrates have been deployed. This is apart from the video surveillance team which will be there to ensure free and fair polling at all the booths,” said additional chief electoral officer R Lakshmanan.

In the five-phase Bihar poll, voting has already taken place in 81 constituencies in the first two phases.

Two-thirds seats (162 constituencies) will go to polls in the remaining three phases on October 28, November 1 and November 5.

 Results of this closely watched election will be declared on November 8.