Ara: More than 6,000 local bodies representatives will cast their votes for the Bihar legislative council byelection for the Ara-Buxar local authorities constituency to be held on Tuesday.“As no candidate withdrew their nominations, a total of six candidates have been left in the fray for the byelection. While the voting will be held at 25 polling centres on Tuesday, spread over Bhojpur district and Buxar districts, there are a total of 6,084 eligible voters,” said a district administration official on Sunday.Interestingly, the women voters surpass their men counterparts. While the number of male voters is 2,832, the eligible women electorate are 3,252. Bhojpur, with 3,779 voters share a major chunk of eligible local representatives, while Buxar lags behind in numbers with only 2,305 voters.According to the political analysts, the main contest will be between the INDIA bloc-backed RJD candidate Sonu Kumar Rai, son of former RJD MLC Lal Das Rai of Ara, and NDA-backed JD(U) candidate Kanhaiya Prasad, son of Sandesh MLA and two time Ara-Buxar MLC Radha Charan Shah alias Seth ji. However, the entry of Manoj Upadhyay, a JD(U) rebel, as an independent candidate may queer the electoral pitch.“Manoj had been an active JD(U) worker since the 1990s. The party expelled him after he decided to contest as an independent candidate. His entry in the fray may make the contest triangular this time,” said a political analyst.The three other candidates, who are in the fray as independent candidates are Niranjan Kumar Ra, a resident of Rohtas district, Lalu Prasad Yadav of Saran district and NDA candidate’s namesake, Kanhaiya Prasad of Bhojpur.Owing to the fact that stakes are high for both the NDA and INDIA bloc camps in the byelection, the bigwigs of both alliances have campaigned for their respective candidates. Even the filing of nomination papers had witnessed the presence of the JD(U) state president, Umesh Kushwaha; ministers Vijay Kumar Sinha and Lesy Singh; HAM national president Santosh Kumar Suman from the NDA side. RJD national vice-president Bhola Yadav, former Union minister Kanti Singh, CPI(ML) state and national level leaders solicited votes for the RJD candidate.According to the election commission, the voting would be held from 8am to 4pm on Tuesday, while the counting will be held on May 14 and the whole election process will be completed by May 15.
