The polling for elections to the 243-member Bihar Legislative Assembly will be held in two phases, November 6 and 11, while the counting of votes will take place on November 14, according to the scheduled announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI). One of the key constituencies where polling would be held in the first phase is the Kalyanpur Assembly seat, which will face this year a triangular contest between the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the Mahagathbandhan and the Jan Suraaj Party (JSP).
Key candidates
Currently, this seat is represented by Janata Dal United (JDU) MLA Maheshwar Hazari, who was a former minister in the state government and has also served as Deputy Speaker of Bihar Legislative Assembly. In fact, Hazari has been one of the prominent faces in here and has won the 2015 and 2020 elections from Kalyanpur. Considering this, the JDU has once again reposed faith in Hazari.
To challenge Hazari, the Mahagathbandhan or the grand alliance has fielded Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation) leader Ranjeet Kumar Ram. Interestingly, the entry of Prashant Kishor's JSP has made the contest in Kalyanpur gripping. The JSP has fielded Ram Balak Paswan from Kalyanpur.
Other candidates who are in the fray are Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Ratneshwar Ram and Socialist Unity Centre Of India (COMMUNIST) leader Madhu Krishnaji Ram.
Kalyanpur Assembly Constituency
The Kalyanpur Assembly constituency, which comes under the Samastipur district of Bihar and a part of the Samastipur Lok Sabha constituency, is one of the 243 constituencies in the Bihar Legislative Assembly. It is constituency number 131 of the Bihar Legislative Assembly. This constituency is reserved for the Scheduled Caste (SC).
Until 2010, the Kalyanpur Assembly constituency, which composes the Kalyanpur and Pusa community development blocks, used to see a contest between Koeri and Bhumihar castes generally. As this constituency is now an SC reserved seat, it caused a dilution of the caste based mobilisation of the candidates. Though many MLAs who have been elected from here belonged to Koeri caste - Brahmdeo Narain Singh, Sita Sinha, Ashok Prasad Verma and Ashwamedh Devi.
Kalyanpur Constituency Demographic Profile
According to the Election Commission of India (ECI), there were 3,24,420 electors - 1,72,305 male, 1,52,103 female and 12 third gender - in Kalyanpur during the 2020 Bihar elections. In the 2015 Bihar polls, there were 2,93,518 electors - 1,57,312 male, 1,36,203 female and three third gender - in the Kalyanpur Assembly constituency.
What happened in the 2020 and 2015 Assembly Elections?
In the 2020 Bihar elections, JDU's Maheshwar Hazari received 72,279 votes (38.46 per cent) to defeat CPI(ML) leader Ranjeet Kumar Ram, who bagged 62,028 votes (33 per cent). At third place, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader A Mona Prasad received 23,163 votes (12.32 per cent).
In the 2015 Bihar elections, Hazari received 84,904 votes (50.40 per cent) to defeat LJP leader Prince Raj, who bagged 47,218 votes (28.03 per cent). At third place, independent candidate Binod Das received 9,098 votes (5.40 per cent).