Fate of 13 candidates of Godda Lok Sabha Constituency election will be decided by 17,14,862 electors in the final phase of LS elections on May 19.

The constituency has 9,05,085 male, 8,09,773 female and four third gender voters. Among these, 23,166 electors are of the age group 18-19 years and would be casting their vote for the first time. In 2014, the polling percentage at Godda constituency was 65.98 percent which was a leap of around 10 percent from 2009 elections which recorded a polling percentage of 56.55 percent.

The constituency includes parts from three districts including Godda, Dumka and Deoghar and covers six assembly constituencies namely Jarmundi, Madhupur, Deoghar, Podaiyahat, Godda and Mahagama.

BJP has a stronghold in the area with the Party’s candidate Nishikant Dubey being the MP for two consecutive terms.

Also, among the six assembly constituencies, BJP has MLAs in four excluding Jarmundi and Podaiyahat where the sitting MLAs are from Indian National Congress and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik), respectively.

Also, in past six elections, BJP had won the LS seat four times. While Nishikant Dubey had been the MP in 2014 and 2009, BJP's Jagdambi Prasad Yadav won the seat in 1999.

However, in 2004 INC's candidate Furqan Ansari won the election while in 2002 by elections the seat was won by JVM(P)'s Pradeep Yadav.

This year, the seat will  witness a tough competition between BJP’s two time winner and sitting MP Nishikant Dubey and candidate of grand alliance and JVM (P)’s sitting MLA from Podaiyahat, Pradeep Yadav.

There was an initial tussle in the grand alliance with JVM(P) Pradeep Yadav and INC’s Furqan Ansari both claiming stakes on the seat. When the seat went to JVM (P), Ansari planned to contest the election independently but later decided to support the grand alliance.

The constituency reels under various urban and rural issues. Power cuts seem to have become a major concern for the residents of town area. "The area around the market place gets only 6 to 7 hours of electricity every day while villages are getting 22 hours of power supply," said Anand Mishra, a local resident.

He added, "The electricity grid is locate 40 kilometres from the town and every time there is a fault, the engineers have to travel far away and the repair time is also too much. The faults are regular because the wires are age old and not powerful to support 18 KV current."

Adani’s thermal power plant might as well emerge as an issue for voting in the constituency. Since Adani Power signed MOU with Bangladesh for setting up the power plants, the area witnessed resistance on the name of land grabbing led by Pradeep Yadav.

While the land acquisition process is over now and construction work has

commenced, the locals are now demanding jobs for themselves.

Meanwhile, the locals are happy with the development work the constituency witnessed in the last 10 years. "There was a time when there were no concrete roads to the district and today it is linked with bitumen roads and NH all around.

There is proper train connectivity which was a dream 10 years ago," said Sanjay Kumar, a senior citizen.

However, some also claim that while infrastructural development can be seen, many projects have not been started despite construction.

"The Ganga Pump Nahar Yojna is completed but we are still not getting water from it. Jal Minars have been constructed across the constituency but water supply did not start. The Deoghar airport is constructed but not being used," said Raghavendra Kumar, an elector.

Among social issues, child marriage is a major problem in the constituency. The National Family Health Survey 4 data shows that Deoghar district, which comes under Godda constituency, tops in child marriage cases in the State with 32.7 percent girls being married below the age of 18.

Similarly, Godda district stands third with 31.4 percent minor girls being married.