39/40, NDA outcastes caste equation

Jitendra K Shrivastava
Tribune News Service
Patna, May 23

The BJP-led NDA apparently swept 39 of the 40 Bihar Lok Sabha seats with massive margins, leaving no room for the Rashtriya Janata Dal-led mahagathbandhan and its allies, except the Congress that succeeded in retaining the Kishanganj seat.

In a high-profile contest, BJP candidate and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad defeated cinestar-turn-politician and Congress candidate Shatrughan Sinha by 2,82,656 votes in Patna Sahib.

In Pataliputra, the contest witnessed ups and downs till late hours, but Misa Bharti, RJD candidate and daughter of Lalu Prasad, fell behind the BJP's Ram Kirpal Yadav. Yadav won the seat with a margin of 43,226 votes. This was the first LS election Lalu Prasad's family faced without him around. The RJD leader is in jail.

Cynosure of media and fiery young politician Kanhaiya Kumar, contesting on the CPI ticket, lost on his electoral debut to the BJP's Giriraj Singh by 4,22,217 votes in Begusarai. Like Kanhaiya, the top guns of mahagathbandhan, including RLSP chief and former Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha, HAM chief and former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, and Vikasheel Insaan Party (VIP) chief Mukesh Sahani, faced an embarrassing defeat with their nearest rivals from the NDA.

Of the 40 seats, the BJP won all 17 seats that it had contested, the JD-U won 16 of the 17 it contested while their ally Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) won six seats. The RJD lost the electoral battles in all 19 seats that it had contested, the RLSP also lost its six seats, HAM three and the VIP three but the Congress retained the Kishanganj seat and lost seven seats.

On the  NDA’s thumping victory, Bihar Chief Minister and JD-U president Nitish Kumar said: “People preferred development work to caste politics. The NDA’s huge victory makes us more committed to work now.” 

Unlike the 2014 Lok Sabha election results, the victory margin turned out to massive. It showed that the Bihar voters have rejected the “caste-based politics” of the mahagathbandhan. It also appeared that Lalu's Muslim-Yadav equation didnot work as the RJD failed to open its account.