Bihar Election Dates: State to Go to Polls in All 7 Phases From April 1 to May 19

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India, on Sunday, announced a seven-phase schedule for the Lok Sabha elections, 2019.

Bihar’s 40 LS seats will have elections in seven phases. The other two states to have a seven-phase election are Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

Four seats in Bihar will go to polls in the first phase on April 11, while another five constituencies will have elections on April 18.

In the third phase on April 23, there will elections in five seats of the state, while on April 29, there will be elections on five seats. Another five seats will go to polls on May 6 in the fifth phase.

Voting will be held on May 12 in eight seats of the state in the sixth phase, while the last phase will see voting in eight constituencies on May 19.

Counting will be held on May 23.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 22 out of the 40 seats, followed by Lok Janshakti Party which won 6.

The Lalu Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal won a meagre four seats, while Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United (JD-U) grabbed two constituencies.

Bihar, with 243 assembly seats, witnessed a regime shift when Kumar broke his party’s alliance with RJD in 2017.

The new coalition government of JD(U) has BJP as the other key ally.

Earlier, Kumar had been very critical against the BJP and his party had not contested the 2014 election in alliance with the saffron party.

Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a mega rally in Patna's Gandhi Maidan with all of BJP's NDA constituents in the state. Kumar too shared stage with Modi. Few days ago, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi had also held a rally at the same venue, which was a first for the Congress in about two decades.

List of Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar

Phase 1 (April 11): Aurangabad, Gaya, Nawada, Jamui

Phase 2 (April 18): Kishanganj, Katihar, Purnia, Bhagalpur, Banka

Phase 3 (April 23): Jhanjharpur, Supaul, Araria, Madhepura, Khagaria

Phase 4 (April 29): Darbhanga, Ujiarpur, Samastipur, Begusarai, Munger

Phase 5 (May 6): Sitamarhi, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Saran, Hajipur

Phase 6 (May 12): Valmiki nagar, Paschim Champaran, Purvi Champaran, Sheohar, Vaishali, Gopalganj, Siwan, Maharajganj

Phase 7 (May 19): Nalanda, Patna Sahib, Patliputra, Arrah, Buxar, Sasaram, Karakat, Jahanabad