Bihar election campaign in Durga Puja pandals

Durga Puja was celebrated with gaiety under the shadow of assembly polls in Bihar this year. Most of the state leaders who used to visit puja pandals every year stayed away from the festivities this time.

With the first phase of the elections scheduled to be held on October 21, leaders like Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan preferred to address election rallies in different parts of the state.

Nitish, in fact, chose to stay in the Kosi region for six days. Lalu and Paswan also remained busy in canvassing support for the candidates of their alliance rather than paying obeisance to the Goddess at any pandal in Patna.

As a result, the puja festivities were quieter here than the last year. But the puja organisers did not forget to depict the poll campaign scenario through various cartoons put up at different pandals.

Apart from showing the rat race of Bihar politicians for the chief minister’s chair, the cartoons also showed the high- voltage drama enacted by the ticket hopefuls at different party headquarters. The puja revellers made a beeline for all those pandals where such cartoons had been put on display.