New Delhi: The Election Commission is going to conduct first phase of Bihar State Assembly elections on Wednesday in 71 constituencies of 243 Assembly constituencies in the state. Nearly two crore people is going to exercise their votes in 71 Assembly constituencies.

JD (U) is contesting in 35 seats; its ally is contesting in 29 seats. The LJP fielded its candidates in 35 seats where the JD (U) candidates are contesting. RJD is contesting in 42 seats and its ally Congress in contesting in 20 segments. Election Commission is following strict Covid- 19 measures at the polling centres to prevent transmission of the virus during voting. The fate of several high-profile candidates, including six ministers and a former chief minister, will be decided in the first phase of polling.

Six Ministers of the state cabinet – Prem Kumar (Gaya Town), Vijay Kumar Sinha (Lakhisarai), Ram Narayan Mandal (Banka), Krishnanandan Prasad Verma (Jehanabad), Jai Kumar Singh (Dinara) and Santosh Kumar Nirala (Rajpur) – are contesting in the first phase of the Bihar Assembly election.

Verma, Singh and Nirala belong to the JDU, while the remaining are from the BJP. Former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi is contesting from the reserved Imamganj seat in Gaya district, which falls under Aurangabad Lok Sabha constituency. The Hindustani Awam Morch president is the sitting MLA. The NDA candidate’s challenger is Uday Narayan Singh, who had been associated with the JDU a few years ago but currently is an RJD nominee.