5 LS seats go to polls in Bihar in phase 2

The second phase of elections in Bihar on Thursday will witness polling in five Lok Sabha seats which are critically important for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U).

The Janata Dal (United) is contesting all the five seats, including Purnea which it had won in 2014 contesting separately from the BJP-led NDA.

The BJP had contested all the five seats in the last general elections and lost all of these.

Fates of 68 candidates will be decided by 86.01 lakh voters across Bhagalpur, Banka, Kishanganj, Katihar and Purnea Lok Sabha constituencies.

Purnea MP Santosh Kumar Kushwaha of the JD(U) is in a straight fight with Uday Singh of the Congress who had won the seat on BJP ticket in 2004 and 2009 but quit the saffron party in protest that it is giving "too many" seats to the JD(U).

Uday Singh is the younger brother of Nand Kishore Singh, a bureaucrat who is currently Chairman of the 15th Finance Commission. Their mother Madhuri Singh had won the seat twice in the 1980s as a ..