TIL Desk/National/Patna/ Much is at stake at Sunday’s by-elections to three Bihar seats — one Lok Sabha and two assembly seats — for both ruling BJP-led NDA and opposition Grand Alliance comprising RJD, Congress and HAM-S, barely a year ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Both National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Grand Alliance are using the bypolls as an opportunity to prove their superiority over the other in terms of popularity among the masses.
While the NDA leaders are confident that they will win all the three seats, the Grand Alliance leaders have repeatedly claimed to pull out victory even in the absence of their star campaigner and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad — behind bars in connection with two fodder scam cases.
The by-elections are set to see direct contests between the NDA led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Grand Alliance, which got its third constituent in the Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular (HAM-S) of Jitan Ram Manjhi, who quit the NDA to switch sides.
The bypolls to Jehanabad and Bhabua assembly seats are being held following the death of sitting legislators from the RJD and the BJP, respectively. The Araria Lok Sabha seat became vacant after the death last year of Mohammad Taslimuddin, the sitting RJD MP.
