Voting begins in the first phase of Bihar polls

Patna: The first phase of Bihar Assembly elections began on Thursday in 47 out of 243 constituencies across the Kosi-Seemanchal and Mithilanchal belts.
And with Opinion polls favoring current Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, rival RJD chief Lalu Prasad may have a reason to worry.
Nitish Kumar has promised to continue the developmental work in JDU's manifesto by weeding out corruption and obtaining a special status for the state.

he key candidates in the polls on Thursday are Hari Prasad Sah of the JDU who is the the Panchayati Raj minister and is contesting from Laukaha, which is in the Madhubani district, water resources minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav of the JDU, contesting from Supaul and state Congress president, Mahboob Ali Kaiser, contesting from Simiri-Bakhtiyarpur in the Saharsa district.
Meanwhile elaborate security arrangements have been made across all booths to ensure smooth polling.
About 10.6 million voters in the region are eligible to decide the fate of 635 candidates in the first lot of the 243 assembly constituencies, most of them in rural areas.
The polling will take place in 10,454 centres.
The eight districts going to the polls are Kishanganj, Araria, Purnia, Madhepura, Saharsa, Katihar, Supaul and Mithilanchal.
Polling, which began at 7 AM, is scheduled to go on till 3 PM.