Hajipur (Sc) Lok Sabha Elections

Hajipur is one of the 40 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar. It is reserved for Scheduled Caste. Of the 40 seats in Bihar, 34 are unreserved seats and 6 are reserved for SC candidates. In the 2014 election, Lok Janshakti Party leader Ramvilas Paswan won from the seat defeating Congress candidate Sanjeev Prasad Toni by a margin of 225500 votes.

Ram Vilas Paswan has had a stronghold in the seat and has won the elections eight times from Hajipur. He won from Hajipur in 1977 with a margin of 4.24 lakh votes - a feat that established a Guinness World Record. However, Paswan has announced that he will not be contesting the election from the Hajipur seat in 2019. LJP leaders have cited Paswan's ill-health as his decision to not contest from Hajipur.

As part of the National Democratic Alliance, the LJP, BJP, JDU are together contesting in Bihar. While BJP and JDU are contesting on 17 seats each, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) is contesting on six seats. NDA will also nominate LJP chief Paswan to the Rajya Sabha.

On the other hand, the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Upendra Kushwaha-led Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), the Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular (HAM-S) led by former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and the Vikasshil Insan Party (VIP) have joined hands for the `Mahagatbandhan` in Bihar.

History of the Hajipur seat:

In the first three elections in 1952, 1957 and 1962, Congress leader Rajeshwara Patel won from the seat. In 1967, and 1971, Congress leaders Valmiki Choudhary and Ramshekhar Prasad Singh won respectively. Paswan has won from the seat in 1977, 1980, 1989, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2014 elections. Up till 1999, he won the elections on the Janata Dal ticket while in 2004 and 2009, he won it on Lok Janshakti Party's ticket. Paswan had founded the LJP in 2000 after he broke away from the Janata Dal. In the 2009 election, JDU's Ram Sundar Das had defeated Paswan in the same constituency by a margin of 37,954 votes. Das had also won the 1991 election for the Janata Dal.

In 2014 election, Bihar witnessed an overall turnout of 56.28 per cent of which 57.66 per cent were female voters and 55.08 per cent were male voters. The Hajipur seat saw an overall voter turnout of 54.85 per cent which included 56.53 per cent female and 53.43 per cent male voters.

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