Cash worth `2.4 lakhs and 79 bottles of country liquor were seized from the supporters of Lalu Prasad Yadav’s estranged brother-in-law and Congress candidate Sadhu Yadav in Gopalganj on Tuesday. The money and wine were meant for distribution to influence voters, said the police.
Two prominent supporters of Sadhu Yadav, a former RJD MP from Gopalganj, were also arrested during the raid conducted on the orders of SP K.S. Anupam two days before Assembly polls are due to be held in north-western Bihar, including Gopalganj. Voter lists of the constituency were also seized along with the cash and the liquor.
In Bihar’s third phase of Assembly polls slated for Thursday, polling would be conducted in 48 constituencies in six districts — Gopalganj, West Champaran, East Champaran, Saran, Vaishali and Siwan. All these districts had earlier been under the control of powerful local dons who rose in Bihar’s political ladders in the past decades before their eventual decline during the past five years.
But, as police officials posted in the region say, many criminals still operate and serve the interests of the politicians. While the ruling JD(U) has fielded dreaded criminal Satish Pandey’s brother Amarendra Pandey in Kuchaikot constituency in Brahmin-dominated Gopalganj district, former don Kali Pandey’s brother Aditya Narayan Pandey is contesting on an RJD-LJP ticket there. Sadhu Yadav is pitted against sitting BJP legislator Subhas Singh and the RJD-LJP’s Reyaz-ul Haq in what appears to be a triangular contest in Gopalganj constituency.
Even as security arrangements for peaceful polls were being put on place in the six north-eastern districts, the Maoists stepped up their attacks and public calls for poll boycott in Bihar’s southern districts.
The left-wing rebels burnt down the campaign vehicles of three candidates — of the RJD, Congress and an Independent — in Munger district on Tuesday.