NEW DELHI: In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, despite the consecration of the Ram temple in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost the Faizabad seat to the Samajwadi Party. However, it retained all the seats in Bihar’s Mithilanchal, considered the paternal home of Sita, Lord Ram’s wife.As Bihar gears up for the assembly elections, Patna may hold the throne, but the two Maithili-speaking regions — Tirhut and Mithilanchal — remain crucial.Bihar can be divided into five regions: Tirhut, Mithilanchal, Kosi-Seemanchal, Magadh, and Bhojpur. Tirhut and Mithlanchal send about 80 MLAs to the 243-member assembly.Can NDA hold its fort?The Mithilanchal region consists of Madhubani, Darbhanga, Samastipur, Saharsa, and Supaul districts, where Maithil Brahmins, Yadavs, Extremely Backward Caste communities, Dalits, and Muslims are the key communities.Mithilanchal is considered a bastion of the NDA, which secured a narrow victory in 2020 due to its strong performance in this region. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, BJP and JD(U) outperformed RJD and Congress, claiming all seven Lok Sabha seats in the region.However, in the 2015 assembly polls, JD(U), as an ally of the RJD-Congress Mahagathbandhan, had won the maximum seats in this region with 19 seats, followed by RJD with 14, while Congress managed 11. The rest were won by other parties. BJP had won 18 seats in this region. BJP’s development push for the regionAhead of the upcoming elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party has long focused on this region, emphasising developmental policies. In August this year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah laid the foundation stone and performed Bhumi Pujan for the new Mata Janki Temple at Punauradham in Sitamarhi, which will be completed at a cost of more than Rs 883 crore across 67 acres.He also flagged off the New Delhi–Sitamarhi Amrit Bharat Express train. In 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation for a new civil enclave at Darbhanga airport, with Rs 912 crore allotted for its development.In the 2025 Union Budget, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the setting up of a Makhana Board in Bihar to support production, processing, and global marketing. Interestingly, the nine key districts in the Mithila region that are major Makhana cultivation hubs are Darbhanga, Madhubani, Purnea, Katihar, Saharsa, Supaul, Araria, Kishanganj, and Sitamarhi.In 2024, PM Modi also laid the foundation stone for the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Darbhanga, the second AIIMS facility in Bihar after the state capital, Patna. AIIMS Darbhanga will be built at an estimated cost of Rs 1,264 crore on 187 acres of land.Ministers, stars in the polls frayCabinet ministers are in the poll fray from this region, including Jibesh Mishra from Jale, Sanjay Saraogi from Darbhanga, Krishna Kumar Mantoo from Amnour, and Bijaendra Prasad Yadav from Supaul. Meanwhile, fresh face like folk singer Maithili Thakur has also been fielded by BJP from Alinagar in the region. She has been fielded from Alipur seat.Mahagathbandhan’s resistanceOn the other hand, the Mahagathbandhan is actively campaigning to improve its prospects in the region. Congress and RJD’s Voter Adhikar Yatra covered a major part of Mithilanchal, where leaders campaigned against chief minister Nitish Kumar and Prime Minister Modi. However, the campaign suffered a dent after abuses were allegedly hurled at PM Modi during the final leg of the yatra in Darbhanga, leading to a political showdown. RJD’s Rabri Devi has also demanded statehood for the Mithila region. The creation of a “Mithilanchal” state is a demand raised intermittently by cultural activists of the region, though it has received only tepid support at times.The Election Commission has announced the schedule for the Bihar Assembly elections. The 243 assembly seats will go to the polls in two phases on November 6 and November 11, with the counting of votes scheduled to take place on November 14. The total number of electors in the final list stands at 7.42 crore, while there were 7.89 crore electors as of June 24 this year. An Election Commission press release stated that 65 lakh voters were removed from the draft list, and the number of electors in the draft list as of August 1, 2025, stood at 7.24 crore.In the 2020 assembly election, the BJP contested 110 seats and won 74, securing 19.8% of the vote share. The Janata Dal (United) contested 115 seats and won 43, with a 15.7% vote share. The Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) contested seven seats, winning four, and achieved 0.9% of the vote share. Go to Source