| The two candidates have very little in common except for the fact that both started their political careers from this constituency in north Bihar. Both have been elected to the Lok Sabha twice from this seat and have also lost from Chappra once. |
| The difference is evident in their campaigning styles. While Laloo's show usually starts with dances by local girls, Rudy's campaign managers screen a video footage of the minister. Also, graduates of the National School of Drama perform street plays across the constituency. |
| While Rudy has data on each and every polling booth on his laptop, Laloo is depending on his MLAs for information on different Assembly segments. While Rudy has addressed around 15 meetings across his constituency "" using his fleet of Mahindra vehicles "" in the last two weeks, Laloo has visited it only once, on a leased chopper, since he filed his nomination papers. |
| Rudy has directly attacked the RJD chief for the lack of development in the constituency and the state. But Laloo has left it to local party leaders to raise issues against his main opponent, like the closure of sugar mills despite Rudy being the minister of state for commerce and industry or the recent controversy about his stay in a Goa hotel. |
| Ask Rudy why the electorate should vote for him, and his reply is, "I offer novelty. Be it shrimp farming, which has resulted in many villagers turning exporters, or purchasing ambulances for every block or starting a tele-medicine centres connected to Apollo, Chennai and Delhi, everything that I have done is unique in this state. A leader is not one who builds roads and drains, only a person who can think differently is a leader." |
| Laloo responds by saying, "The BJP is not secular and is fooling the people of this country." |
| Rudy's "innovative" thinking has gone down well with the voters, who are also upset with most RJD legislators within the Lok Sabha constituency (the party had won six of the eight Assembly segments). |
| However, voters complain that since Rudy became a minister, he has had very little time for his constituency. The minister counters the charge by saying that he had been busy with national and international assignments and in the two ministries that he has worked in, there was very little he could have done for Chhapra. |
| But Rudy's popularity keeps going down as you move away from the national highways that cut across the city. In the interior areas, where roads lose their black top, Laloo is almost revered. |
| Rudy and Laloo are both under the microscope on the issue of development. Shopkeeper Amrendra Sah says that despite the newly designated NH 102, it is virtually impossible to use the highway when it rains. "How can I demand a road when Rudy could not manage to get a pucca road to his native village," asks waiter Shameem. But the minister's ambulances and the 400 schools constructed across the constituency have been welcomed. |
| A BJP survey shows that Rudy has an upper hand at the moment, having made some inroads into the Muslim vote bank, but the minister's campaign managers are on their toes. "Laloo has only visited the constituency once and it is just the beginning," says a Rudy confidant. |
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