Sitting MP and JD(U) leader Ajay Kumar Mandal is seeking re-election from his home turf Bhagalpur. A three-term MLA — twice from Nathnagar and once from Kahalgaon — Mandal went to the Lok Sabha riding on the Modi wave in 2019 and defeated his nearest rival Bulo Mandal of the RJD by over 2.75 lakh votes. However, in 2024, the non-matriculate MP is facing Congress’s Ajeet Sharma, who is currently an MLA from Bhagalpur. Interestingly, the same Bulo Mandal, whom Ajay defeated in 2019, has joined Nitish’s bandwagon as he was denied ticket by the RJD and the seat was allotted to the Congress. Now, both the Mandals have joined hands to upstage Congress’s Ajeet, who is making his debut in the parliamentary election from the erstwhile Congress bastion — Bhagalpur — from where former union minister and former chief minister of Bihar Bhagwat Jha Azad won seven times.
A strong Congress candidate from the upper caste Bhumihar community, Ajeet Sharma is currently an MLA from Bhagalpur and is contesting the Lok Sabha elections for the first time as a Mahagatbandhan candidate. Having won Assembly elections thrice, Sharma, who also served as Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader in the Bihar Assembly, is banking on his work as legislator, besides drawing crowds in the name of his two celebrity daughters — Neha Sharma and Aisha Sharma — who are models- turned-Bollywood actors. Neha, who starred with John Abraham in Satyamev Jayate, was also in the race for the Congress ticket, but eventually her father was named the nominee citing Neha’s busy schedule in the Tinsel Town. More than the upper caste votes he commands, Sharma is banking on the RJD’s core vote bank: Muslims and Yadavs to turn the tide in his favour.
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