By IANS,
Patna : People are voting for development and peace, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said after casting his vote at his ancestral home Bakhtiyarpur near here.
Appealing to voters to come out in large numbers to cast their franchise, the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) chief said: “I am very happy to use my right of vote and appeal to people to vote in large numbers.”
He said people were upbeat and it was a good sign.
“People have been voting for development and peace; it is a positive shift in Bihar.”
The chief minister had left Patna by train in the morning for Bakhtiyarpur, 55 km from here, where his mother and elder brother live.
Bakhtiyarpur falls under the Patna Saheb constituency, one of the three of Bihar’s 40 constituencies going to the polls in the fourth phase of the elections.
The contest in Patna Saheb is between two showbiz stars — Bharatiya Janata Party’s Shatrughan Sinha and Congress’ Shekhar Suman.
Voting began at 7 a.m. amid heavy security arrangements in view of the threat of Maoist violence.
About 4.89 million voters in the three constituencies of state are eligible to exercise their franchise to decide the fate of 57 candidates.