Located at the confluence of Vaishali and Saran districts, Raja Pakar lies 17 km from the district headquarters Hajipur. Nearby towns include Sonpur in Saran district (18 km), Mahnar Bazar (23 km), and Lalganj (25 km). The divisional headquarters Muzaffarpur (50 km) and the state capital Patna (40 km) are the closest cities.
Close to rivers like the Gandak and Ganga, Raja Pakar’s flat terrain supports agriculture as its primary economic activity. Farming is the main occupation, with paddy, wheat, and maize as major crops. Banana plantations have become particularly lucrative due to research and improved technology promoted by the Banana Research Centre in Goraul, which has introduced high-yield, disease-resistant varieties.
Raja Pakar has no recorded history of its own. Its proximity to the ancient city of Vaishali (barely 36 km away) is believed to have influenced the region in the past.
The Raja Pakar Assembly constituency was established in 2008 following recommendations of the Delimitation Commission. Reserved for Scheduled Castes, it is one of six segments of the Hajipur (SC) Lok Sabha seat and comprises Raja Pakar, Desri, and Sahdei Buzurg community development blocks.
The constituency has seen victories by three different parties: Janata Dal (United) in 2010, Rashtriya Janata Dal in 2015, and Congress in 2020. Political alliances have played a major role in elections here. JD(U) won the first election by 10,215 votes as a BJP ally but later gifted the seat to RJD after switching alliances. RJD won in 2015 by 15,155 votes. In 2020, with JD(U) back with BJP, RJD gifted the seat to its ally Congress, which won by a narrow margin of 1,796 votes. This victory was enabled by the LJP, which polled 24,689 votes after leaving the NDA, splitting the anti-RJD vote.
The 2024 Lok Sabha polls witnessed this dynamic shift again when JD(U) and LJP(RV) reconciled. Chirag Paswan of LJP(RV) led by 27,604 votes in the Raja Pakar Assembly segment during the parliamentary elections.
In the 2020 Assembly elections, Raja Pakar had 272,256 registered voters, with Scheduled Castes constituting 22.41 percent and Muslims 6.70 percent of the electorate. This purely rural constituency (with zero urban voters) saw its voter count increase to 284,024 in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Election Commission reports indicate that 3,314 registered voters had migrated out between these two elections.
As the 2025 Assembly elections draw closer, irrespective of which NDA constituent contests the Raja Pakar seat, the NDA appears to hold an advantage. It would not be easy for the RJD-backed Congress MLA Pratima Kumari Das to retain this seat. Her only hope rests on whether they can mobilise nearly 45 percent of those who usually abstain from voting, given that only about 55 percent of the Raja Pakar electorate have been casting their votes since the constituency's inception.
(Ajay Jha)
