JD(U),RJD get ready for another poll battle at Araria assembly

Swords were drawn for the Jokihat assembly segment here today with candidates of both the ruling Janata Dal (United) and the opposition RJD filing their nomination papers for May 28 by-poll.

By-election on the seat has been necessitated due to resignation of sitting JD(U) MLA Sarfaraz Alam, who quit the party earlier this year and got elected - on an RJD ticket - to the Lok Sabha from Araria, a seat held by his late father Mohammad Taslimuddin.

While Alam's younger brother Shahnawaz filed nomination papers as the RJD's candidate, the JD(U) has fielded Murshid Alam, a former village Mukhiya who had joined the party a few years ago.

The by-polls will be yet another test of strength between the JD(U) and the RJD, led respectively by arch rivals Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad.

The political rivalry between the two has grown more fierce ever since Kumar broke a short-lived alliance with Prasad last year, following corruption cases against the latter's son Tejashwi Yadav who was then the Deputy CM.

Kumar subsequently returned to the BJP-led NDA which he had left in 2013 following differences over projection of Narendra Modi as the Prime Ministerial candidate.

By-election for the assembly segment comes about two months after the RJD succeeded in retaining the Araria Lok Sabha seat, defeating BJP's Pradip Kumar.

Incidentally, RJD's victory by a margin of about 50,000 votes was on account of massive leads in just two of six assembly segments falling under the parliamentary constituency, both of them having a heavy concentration of minority voters.

In Jokihat, the RJD had polled about 1.20 lakh votes as against less than 40,000 secured by the BJP. The other assembly segment where the RJD polled more votes than the BJP was Araria.