Bihar LS polls: NDA maintains upper hand, but cedes ground to INDIA bloc

Patna, Jun 4 (PTI) The BJP-led NDA on Tuesday maintained an upper hand in Bihar, where it won three-fourths of the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats, but also ceded some ground to the INDIA bloc.

The BJP and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) bagged 12 seats each, while five were won by Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and ex-CM Jitan Ram Manjhi, who heads Hindustani Awam Morcha, made parliamentary debut from Gaya.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP-led coalition had 39 out of the state's 40 seats.

In the latest elections, the BJP’s vote share (20.51 per cent) was greater than that of the JD(U) (18.53 per cent), though it had also contested 17 seats, one more than the chief minister’s party.

Buried within the JD(U)’s better strike rate was also the fact that in the closely fought elections, seven of its candidates won by margins of more than one lakh votes. In comparison, only five BJP candidates won their seats with margins that were in six digits.

The Muzaffarpur BJP candidate Raj Bhushan Chaudhary recorded the biggest victory margin of 2.35 lakh votes, over sitting MP Ajay Nishad who contested on a Congress ticket after the saffron party denied him a chance to run for a third consecutive term.

Prominent BJP winners included Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai) and Nityanand Rai (Ujiyarpur), besides veteran leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy who scored a third consecutive victory in Saran, defeating RJD president Lalu Prasad’s daughter Rohini Acharya.

A former pocket borough of Prasad who held the seat until his disqualification in 2013, Saran witnessed clashes between BJP and RJD supporters after polls, which claimed one life.

However, another BJP Union minister RK Singh, the second-term MP from Arrah, lost the seat to Sudama Prasad of CPI(ML) Liberation.

Chirag Paswan had a dream run, winning his late father Ram Vilas Paswan’s pocket borough Hajipur by a margin of 1.70 lakh votes even as all other candidates of his party registered comfortable wins in their respective seats.

Notable among winners from his party, which came into being after LJP floated by his late father got split by uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras, was Shambhavi Chaudhary from Samastipur who was hailed during the campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “youngest NDA candidate”.

In the opposition camp, the RJD got the highest vote share (22.14 per cent), though this was not reflected in the number of seats (four) it bagged. Nonetheless, it was a big relief for the party which had drawn a blank in the last general elections.

Prominent RJD winners included Lalu Prasad’s eldest daughter Misa Bharti (Patliputra), who broke a jinx for her family. The seat came into being in 2008 delimitation and in Lok Sabha polls held the following year, the RJD president entered the fray but lost to former close aide Ranjan Yadav who was the JD(U) candidate.

In the last couple of general elections, Bharti contested, but lost, to another close aide of her father, Ram Kripal Yadav, who joined the BJP ahead of the 2014 polls. The electoral battle in Patliputra had run into controversy with Yadav alleging that his cavalcade was attacked by supporters of Bharti, shortly after voting was over on June 1.

The Congress, which had in 2019 won Kishanganj, becoming the only non-NDA party to score a victory in Bihar, retained the Muslim-majority seat, besides wresting back Katihar and reserved constituency of Sasaram.

Katihar was won by veteran leader and former Union minister Tariq Anwar, who had last bagged it in 2014 on an NCP ticket. Sasaram winner Manoj Kumar is a new entrant, who recently quit the BSP.

The CPI(ML) Liberation, which turned the tables on BJP in Arrah, also grabbed the adjoining Karakat, where the much talked about Bhojpuri superstar Pawan Singh, who contested as an Independent, lost by over one lakh votes.

The seat was won by former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha, the Rashtriya Lok Morcha president, in 2014, who failed to win it back despite a high voltage campaign in his constituency, which saw rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

Purnea became the lone seat to have voted for an Independent candidate. Former MP Pappu Yadav, married to Congress Rajya Sabha member Ranjeet Ranjan, had entered the fray after merging his Jan Adhikar Party with the national outfit. His hopes of a Congress ticket were dashed with the RJD fielding JD(U) turncoat Bima Bharti.

While Yadav defeated two-term JD(U) MP Abhay Kushwaha by about 24,000 votes, Bharti finished third and lost her deposit. PTI NAC RG