Katihar (Bihar) Election 2019: NCP MP Tariq Anwar contests from Congress for sixth LS term

Patna: The Katihar Lok Sabha constituency went to the polls in the second phase of the 2019 general elections on April 18. It is one of the 40 Lok Sabha constituencies from the state of Bihar. Located in Seemanchal region, Katihar is one of the most backward constituencies. The seat saw a stiff contest between Tariq Anwar of the Congress and Dulal Chandra Goswami of the Janata Dal-United (JD-U).

Muhammad Shakur of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Shivnandan Mandal of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) also contested for Katihar.
 
The Katihar Parliamentary seat comprises six state Assembly segments namely -Katihar, Kadwa, Balrampur, Pranpur, Manihari and Barai.
 
In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, there were 14,46,478 voters in the Katihar Lok Sabha constituency, out of which 7,69,044 were men and the remaining 6,77,434 women. Tariq Anwar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won the elections with 4,31,292 (44.11 per cent) votes. He won by a margin of 1,14,740 votes, defeating Nikhil Kumar Choudhary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who secured 3,16,552 (32.37 per cent) votes. 

 
Tariq Anwar joined the Congress in October 2018. A former president of Congress’ Bihar unit, Anwar’s role was instrumental in the formation of NCP in the 1990s.

 
In Bihar, the Lok Sabha elections were held in seven phases on April 11, 18, 23, 29, May 6, 12 and 19. 
 
The fate of the 8,000 candidates belonging to 1,800 odd political parties will be decided on May 23 when the counting of votes will begin.