JD(U) Fields Sitting MP Sunil Kumar For A Second Term In Bihar’s Valmiki Nagar (image-Facebook/Sunil Kumar)
Incumbent MP Sunil Kumar has been fielded as the Janata Dal (United) candidate from Bihar’s Valmikinagar Lok Sabha constituency, once known as Bagaha. Since 2009, the seat has consistently elected NDA candidates: the JD(U) thrice and the BJP once.
Following the death of his father and then sitting MP, Baidyanath Mahto, Kumar won the seat in the by-elections held in 2020, defeating Congress candidate Pravesh Mishra by a margin of around 22,539 votes. His father represented the Valmiki Nagar seat in 2009 and 2019, where he won the seat with a huge margin of 3.5 lakh votes against Shashwat Kedar from Congress.
BJP candidate Satish Chandra Dubey won the seat in 2014. Dubey expressed his interest in contesting the elections in the 18th Lok Sabha elections from the seat; however, the NDA’s seat-sharing arrangement led to the renomination of JD(U)’s sitting MP.
Against the JD(U) candidate in the party’s citadel is Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate Deepak Yadav, a local sugar mill owner from Haryana who has a decent popularity and support among the farmers. Notably, before securing the RJD ticket, Yadav was an active member of the saffron party.
Although the RJD candidate enjoys a considerable amount of popularity among the sugarcane farmers in the region, Kumar has an upper hand in terms of popularity thanks to the Modi factor. Meanwhile, Yadav has led his campaign with an emphasis on the main issues bothering the locals, such as floods, droughts, the issues of sugarcane farmers, and migration due to unemployment.
The Valmiki Nagar Lok Sabha constituency comprises Vidhan Sabhas such as Ramnagar (SC), Narkatiaganj, Bagaha, Valmiki Nagar, Lauriya, and Sikta. While four of the constituencies are represented by the BJP, the JD(U) and the CPI(ML)(L) represent one seat each. The constituency has a significant Muslim (21.98 percent), SC (14.08 percent), and ST (6.36 percent) population.
