Begusarai: Union minister Giriraj Singh of the BJP on Tuesday retained the Begusarai Lok Sabha seat in Bihar, albeit by a reduced margin of over 81,480 votes.
Singh had shifted to Begusarai in 2019, giving up his sitting seat of Nawada, and defeated former JNU students' union leader Kanhaiya Kumar, the CPI candidate, by a staggering margin of over 4 lakh votes. In this election, the Left party fielded former MLA Abdhesh Kumar Roy, who polled 5.67 lakh votes, as against 6.49 lakh secured by the BJP incumbent.
Once 'Mini Moscow', Now BJP Stronghold
The seat was once called ‘Mini Moscow’ given the predominance of Communist Party of India which had turned the tide against Congress in the 70s. BJP changed the political scenario in the second decade of this century with victories by saffron party candidate Bhola Singh in 2014, followed up by Giriraj Singh in 2019.
The key feature of this constituency has been that all candidates winning from here since independence hailed from Bhumihar community, except in 2009 when JD(U)’s Monazir Hassan registered his victory. If one goes only by that criteria, then Giriraj Singh, a Bhumihar, is likely to retain the seat. However, Rai, a former three-time CPI legislator who comes from the backward Yadav caste, would want to change that.
2024 polls: The total number of registered voters in this constituency in 2024 polls was 2196089, and the seat saw a voting turnout of 58.70% (1289076 total count of votes), according to the Election Commission’s data released on May 25, 2024. The seat went to polls in phase 4 on May 13, 2024.
In the 2019 LS Polls, Giriraj Singh of BJP won from Begusarai, getting 692,193 votes, comprising 56.48% of the total number of votes polled. Singh defeated Kanhaiya Kumar (who was with CPI then) by a margin of 4,22,217 votes. In 2014, BJP’s Bhola Singh had won from this seat, polling 428,227 votes (39.73%) and defeating RJD’s Tanveer Hussain by a margin of 58,335 votes.
