Bihar: Will shotgun fire or misfire?

All the parties in Bihar are bracing up for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Forty Lok Sabha seats are up for grabs across Bihar. Counting of votes is scheduled to take place on May 23.

Patna: The battlefield of Bihar has turned out be as interesting as Uttar Pradesh, with new political equations emerging. In all of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar that voted across seven phases, there is a direct contest between the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and an anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) front led by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress.

The opposition, led by RJD, has formed a "mahagathbandhan" with the Congress and other regional parties like RLSP of former Union Minister and the Hindustani Awam Morch of former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi to take on the NDA that is led by Janata Dal-United, the BJP and the Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar are likely to overpower Grand Alliance in the state and expected to maintain its hold in Bihar as the coalition may win majority of the seats, most of the exit polls predicted.

The battle for Bihar’s Patna Sahib constituency has become a matter of prestige for the Bharatiya Janata Party since its MP Shatrughan Sinha left BJP and joined Congress only a month before the elections.

The Congress party fielded him from Patna Sahib Lok Sabha seat against his old friend and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad. Sinha has emerged as one of the biggest critics of Modi in the last four years but the party chose not to act against this popular Bollywood star.

Shatrughan Sinha may find it tough to bring down BJP heavyweight Ravi Shankar Prasad in Patna Sahib constituency in Bihar.

The former national president of Janata Dal (United) Sharad Yadav is now contesting from Madhepura Lok Sabha seat on an RJD ticket. Yadav drifted away from Nitish Kumar after he dumped RJD and formed the government with BJP in 2017. Sharad Yadav then formed his Rashtriya Janata Dal (Lok Tantrik) and became a part of a larger opposition alliance against BJP.

Begusarai has attracted much attention in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. Giriraj Singh, who is the sitting MP from Nawada, had earlier expressed his displeasure over being allotted a ticket from Begusarai and had levelled allegations against the state BJP leadership for shifting his constituency. Eyes will also be on Kanhaiya Kumar, who has on several occasions criticised the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has received support from celebrities like Shabana Azmi, Swara Bhasker and JNU students during his campaign.