Rains play spoilsport to Bihar poll campaigning

Inclement weather forced the pilots to postpone their choppers take off for the day at Patna airport on October 21, 2010 as leaders of different political parties found the day most disgusting. The leaders lost one full day of poll campaigning in different assembly segments of Bihar where the election is due on October 24.

Prominent leaders, who abandoned their meetings, were JD (U)'s Shivanand Tiwari, Union Coal Minister Sri Prakash Jaiswal, LJP Chief Ram Vilas Paswan, BJP chief Nitin Gadkari, BJP leaders M Venkaia Naidu, Shahnawaz Hussain, Rajiv Pratap Rudi and Bihar BJP chief Dr CP Thakur.

Meanwhile, an estimated 53 per cent of the 1.07 crore voters exercised their franchise today in 47 of the 243 seats in the first phase of the Bihar Assembly elections that passed off by and large peacefully amid tight security on October 21.

Prominent among the 631 contestants in fray for the first phase are senior JD(U) ministers Vijendra Prasad Yadav, Narendra Narain Yadav, Renu Kumari, Hari Prasad Sah, Congress nominee Ranjeet Ranjan, wife of former MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, state Congress chief Choudhary Mehboob Ali Kaiser and Lovely Anand, the wife of former MP Anand Mohan.

Photo: Aftab Alam Siddiqui