Aurangabad Lok Sabha constituency: Rajput dominated seat since 1952 election

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Aurangabad is one of the 40 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar. Sushil Kumar Singh won the seat for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2014 election from Aurangabad. Singh defeated his closest rival Congress candidate Nikhil Kumar by a margin of 66347 votes.

The Aurangabad parliamentary seat is considered to be a traditional Congress seat. It is a Rajput dominated seat. Former Bihar chief minister Satyendra Narayan Singh and his family have a stronghold on this seat. In the first Lok Sabha election in 1951-52, Satyendra Narayan Singh won from the seat to enter Parliament and went on to win from the seat for seven times. From the same family, Shema Singh of Congress won in 1999 and then Nikhil Kumar won in 2004. The current MP from the seat Sushil Kumar Singh won the 1998 election on a Samata Party ticket, in 2009 he fought and won on a Janata Dal United ticket while in 2014, he contested on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket.

Of the 40 seats in Bihar, 34 are unreserved seats and 6 are reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates. Aurangabad Lok Sabha constituency comprises of six Vidhan Sabha segments, namely - Kutumba, Aurangabad, Rafiganj, Gurua, Imamganj and Tikari. In the 2015 Bihar assembly elections, Congress won two out of these six seats, JDU won two, one was bagged by the BJP and one seat went into the kitty of Hindustan Awami Morcha. Former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi was elected MLA from Imamganj seat.

The preparations are on in full swing for the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The BJP, JDU are contesting the polls on 17 seats each while the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) is contesting on six seats. NDA will also nominate LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan to the Rajya Sabha.

On the other hand, the Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Upendra Kushwaha-led Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), the Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular (HAM-S) led by former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and the Vikasshil Insan Party (VIP) have joined hands for the "Mahagatbandhan" in Bihar.    

Bihar witnessed an overall turnout of 56.28 per cent in the 2014 polls of which 57.66 per cent were female voters and 55.08 per cent were male voters. In Aurangabad, 51.18 per cent voters exercised their franchise in the 2014 election of which 52.18 per cent were male voters while 50.03 per cent were female voters.