Amid palpable fears that the Maoists entrenched in Bihar’s southern districts may unleash violence to disrupt the sixth and last phase of Assembly polls slated for Saturday, the state’s police have taken elaborate security precautions to let polling in the 26 constituencies take place peacefully.

Amid a poll boycott call by Maoists, nearly 35,000 security personnel and four choppers have been deployed as part of unprecedented security arrangements for the sixth and final phase of Bihar Assembl

A makeshift dais used by RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and his ally Ram Vilas Paswan of the LJP to address a public meeting brought death for a 10-year-old boy trapped under it as it collapsed with the weight of people scrambling to see the two leaders’ helicopter on Wednesday.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday ripped into the much-hyped claims of development made by Bihar’s NDA government in her impassioned campaign speeches, asserting that the state’s downhill journey was steered in the past 20 years — 15 years of RJD rule and the next five of NDA’s.

Further lowering the levels of decorum in Bihar’s election campaign speeches, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Monday likened chief minister and JD(U) stalwart Nitish Kumar to a rat and claimed the RJD-LJP alliance would be forming the state’s next government.

Congress president Mrs Sonia Gandhi and her son, party general secretary Rahul Gandhi, will campaign in Bihar this week for the last round of the six phase Assembly polls, party leaders said on Monday

Five days ahead of the last round of the Bihar Assembly elections, Maoists blasted a bridge and put up posters calling for a poll boycott, the police said on Monday.

A barrage of immoderate political comments in Bihar over former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief K.S. Sudarshan’s no-holds-barred personal diatribes against Congress president Sonia Gandhi resurrected old dichotomies and ironies in the state’s politics on Saturday, indicating that the controversy could overshadow the campaigns for the final phase of Assembly polls.

Chhath celebrations ended in Bihar on Saturday with lakhs of devotees offering prayers on the banks of rivers, reservoirs, canals and ponds to rising sun.

Former Bihar minister Shyam Razak, a candidate of the ruling JD(U) in Tuesday’s Assembly polls, faced charges of using money to influence voters even as the polling process in his constituency, Phulwarisharif near Patna, was in progress.