Bihar Election: From Nitish Kumar to Pappu Yadav, key political figures to watch out for

Nitish Kumar, the incumbent Bihar chief minister, remains the best bet for the NDA and indispensable to the BJP, which cannot afford to displease him beyond a point. This election, however, is a true test for Nitish, as Modi looms large over the alliance and anti-incumbency threatens to catch up with him.

As Bihar goes to 2020 polls, Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi is up against a second generation of BJP leaders – Dr Sanjay Jaiswal (BJP state president) and Nityanand Rai (Union minister of state for home affairs). This election season, Sushil Kumar Modi has played a key role in the selection of the party’s candidates and is one of the star campaigners for the NDA.

Making his electoral debut in 2015 from Raghopur (Vaishali district), Tejashwi, a former cricketer, has been in active politics for seven years. With the ailing patriarch, Lalu Prasad lodged in a Ranchi jail, far away from the scene of political action in Bihar, the RJD’s reins are with his son Tejashwi, who, so far, has been finding it difficult to come out of his father’s formidable shadow.

Former health minister and elder son of RJD chief Lalu Prasad, Tej Pratap Yadav has always been a curious case in Bihar politics. Tej Pratap Yadav has reconciled himself to Tejashwi being heir apparent. But No. 2 is only so far from No . 1.

The 2020 Assembly polls would be the first real test for the one-film old actor-turned-politician Chirag Paswan for two reasons. First, he would be in the field without his father for the first time. Second, with LJP having officially walked out of the NDA alliance in Bihar, there will be no direct blessing from PM Modi.

State chief and three-time MP Sanjay Jaiswal has good equations with leaders at the centre, and in Bihar -- even Nitish can't disagree. Jaiswal has retained the Paschim Champaran seat in the 2009, 2014 and the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

In his over three-decade political career, it is the first time Shaktisinh Gohil will be overseeing a state election as an AICC pointsman. His hand is seen in the hard bargaining by the Congress to secure 70 seats in the Mahagathbandhan, a huge jump from the 41 the party had contested in Bihar in 2015.

From a murder case conviction to fighting the bigwigs, the 52-year-old Pappu Yadav has traversed the political landscape, but his politics remains limited to his region. For the coming polls, Ranjan, who formed the JAP in 2015, has forged a front called the Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA) with Chandrashekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party and him as the CM candidate.

Upendra Kushwaha is entering the elections as head of the newly-formed Grand Democratic Secular Front, including the RLSP (contesting 100-plus seats), Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, BSP, and two other smaller parties. This time, the RJD kept him hanging and the BJP offered him all of six seats, forcing Kushwaha to seek yet another partner.

Jitan Ram Manjhi is re-contesting from Imamganj, against two-time Bihar Speaker and RJD candidate Uday Narayan Choudhary. The JD(U) has given Manjhi's party Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular (HAM-S) seven seats from its share of 122.

Akhtar-ul Iman has become the face of Assaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) in Bihar. he is contesting from Amour Vidhan Sabha seat in Seemanchal.