Police on alert as Bihar votes

About 866,000 of Bihar's 52 million are eligible to vote on Friday as part of a staggered month-long process, allowing policemen to deploy across the state where polls in the past have been marred by dozens of deaths.

"We are on high alert," state police chief Ashish Ranjan Sinha said.

Friday's voting is in four constituencies where left-wing radicals, who say they are fighting for the landless farmers, have called for a boycott of.

The election is a battle for survival for the Bihar-based Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and its maverick leader Lalu Prasad Yadav, who draws support from millions of lower-caste Hindus as well as minority Muslims.

Yadav is also the railway minister -- a powerful post -- and his party is the largest in the central coalition after the Congress Party.