Lok Sabha polls: Repolling underway at 2 booths in Bihar's Khagaria seat

Repolling is underway on Friday at two polling booths in Bihar's Khagaria Lok Sabha seat, amid tight security arrangements, an official said.

The voting began at 7 am at booth numbers 182 and 183, falling under the Beldaur assembly segment of the Khagaria parliamentary constituency, and will continue till 6 pm, he said.

Repolling was ordered at these polling booths as voting was disrupted on account of the vandalisation of EVMs on May 7 during the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections.

Polling on Tuesday took place in five Lok Sabha seats of Bihar, including Khagaria, where Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) is locked in a straight battle with CPI(M).

Notably, residents of Sahraun village in Khagaria, falling under the Gogri subdivision, had announced that they would boycott the poll to press the demand for a road.

On polling day on May 7, a group of unruly people stormed the two booths and vandalised the electronic voting machines, said a senior official of the CEO's office.

Among the five Bihar seats that went to polls in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday, Khagaria had the lowest number of 18.40 lakh voters and the constituency registered a turnout of 58.20 per cent.

Voting was largely peaceful in Khagaria, Araria, Jhanjharpur, Supaul, and Madhepura on May 7 with a provisional voter turnout of 60 per cent, almost one cent less than the polling percentage in the 2019 general elections.

All five seats are currently held by the NDA.

Sitting MP from Khagaria, Mehboob Ali Kaiser, who won the seat twice on the trot for the Lok Janshakti Party of late Ram Vilas Paswan, was denied a ticket this time.

Ram Vilas Paswan's son Chirag Paswan, whose party is now known as LJP (Ram Vilas), has fielded Rajesh Verma, prompting Kaiser to join RJD. Kaiser's son Yusuf Salahuddin is the RJD MLA from Simri Bakhtiyarpur, which falls under the Khagaria Lok Sabha constituency.