India: Politicians’ children, gangsters, millionaires add spice to second phase of polling in Bihar

Patna: The stakes are high for both the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the rival Grand Alliance as Bihar goes to the polls in the second phase on Tuesday. Most of the total 94 assembly seats spread over 17 districts of north Bihar are those that faced severe flooding this year amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In the 2015 assembly polls the Grand Alliance which included Janata Dal United (JD-U) of chief minister Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress party had bagged 70 out of these total 94 seats. But this time the poll equation is entirely different with Nitish Kumar going back to the NDA camp and banking on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Although Nitish Kumar has joined hands with his archrival Modi, the panic in the NDA camp is clearly visible in view of the surprising voting patterns in the first phase when an impressive 56 percent voters cast their votes.

Prominent candidates whose fate will be decided in the second phase include Grand Alliance’s chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav, Tej Pratap Yadav, sons of jailed RJD president Lalu Prasad, Chandrika Rai, close relative of RJD president now fighting against his party, Nand Kishore Yadav, Shrawan Kumar, Ram Sevak Singh and Rana Randhir Singh, all ministers.

A total of 1,463 candidates are in the fray for the second phase but around 35 per cent of them have criminal cases pending against them, according to a report of the Association for Democratic Reform (ADR), an election watchdog working to bring transparency and accountability in politics and reducing money and muscle power in elections. Many of them face charges including murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, rape and crime against women.

Some of the candidates in the fray with serious criminal charges include Amarendra Kumar Pandey alias Pappu Pandey (JD-U) who has a total of 11 cases pending against him, Ritlal Yadav, RJD, (14 cases), Vikas Kumar, Independent (13), Amarjit Kushwaha, CPI-ML, (14 cases) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) candidate Manoj Kumar Singh (9 cases).

Also, some 34 per cent of the candidates trying their luck in the second phase are millionaires. Top millionaires in the list include Sanjeev Singh, Congress (total declared assets worth Rs566 million), Deo Kumar Chaurasia, RJD (Rs492 million), Anunay Sinha, Congress (Rs464 million), Ajit Sharma, Congress (Rs432 million) and BJP candidate Kundan Singh having a total declared assets of Rs387 million.

This phase of polling is also significant with the children of a number of politicians and filmstars making poll debuts. Prominent among them are Luv Sinha, son of actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha, Subhashini Raj, daughter of veteran socialist leader Sharad Yadav, Kaushal Kishore, son of Haryana governor SN Arya, Pappu Singh, nephew of former governor Nikhil Kumar and Chetan Anand, son of jailed former parliamentarian Anand Mohan.