NEW DELHI: Counting for the Raxaul assembly seat in Bihar will begin at 8 am, as voters await the results of a key contest in Purvi Champaran district. The constituency, an unreserved category seat, has traditionally been a stronghold of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with the party maintaining a winning streak in recent decades. For the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections, the main contenders in Raxaul are Pramod Kumar Sinha of BJP, Shyam Bihari Prasad of INC and Kapil Dev Prasad of Jan Suraaj. This contest is being closely watched due to the constituency’s political significance and the competition among the key parties.Key Candidates:

In the 2020 Assembly elections, Pramod Kumar Sinha of BJP defeated Congress’s Rambabu Prashad Yadav by a margin of 36,923 votes. In the 2015 elections, BJP’s Ajay Kumar Singh had emerged victorious over RJD’s Suresh Kumar by a narrower margin of 3,169 votes, demonstrating the competitiveness of this constituency. Raxaul is part of the Paschim Champaran Lok Sabha constituency, which returned BJP’s Sanjay Jaiswal to Parliament in the 2024 general elections with a margin of 1,36,568 votes over Congress’s Madan Mohan Tiwari. The assembly seat, thus, remains a crucial battleground for the BJP to maintain its dominance, while opposition parties like INC and Jan Suraaj aim to challenge the trend.The Election Commission reported a 68.52 per cent turnout in the second phase of polling across 122 constituencies as of 5 pm on Tuesday. According to exit polls released ahead of counting, the contest in Raxaul is expected to be competitive, with the BJP projected to retain its stronghold in the constituency.As per People’s Pulse, the NDA, led by the BJP, is projected to win between 133 and 159 seats, while the Mahagathbandhan is expected to secure 75 to 101 seats. Jan Suraaj is predicted to win up to 5 seats and other parties could claim 2 to 8 seats. The results from Raxaul will contribute to the larger picture of Bihar’s political scenario in 2025, which is being closely monitored by political analysts and party leaders alike. The outcome of this high-stakes race will be significant for both state-level strategy and the balance of power within Paschim Champaran.