Zeenews Bureau
Patna/New Delhi: Nitish Kumar's magic, based on politics of development, got a resounding thumbs up from the people of Bihar as the JD(U)-BJP combine registered a landslide victory in the Assembly Elections on Wednesday.
Results are now available for all the total 243 seats that were contested. The NDA combine spearheaded by the incumbent Chief Minister has emerged victorious in 206 seats, securing a comfortable three-fourth majority in Bihar Legislative Assembly. Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD along with LJP is a poor second with it winning 25 seats so far; Congress has won four seats and others have tasted success in 8 seats.
The results, though expected, are stunning, to say the least, as this victory is one of the biggest yet in Bihar by any political party/alliance. 122 is the magic mark required for any coalition or party to form a government in the state.
Clearly, Nitish seems to have reaped the harvest of his widely-hailed pro-people policies of the past five years.
“Victory a huge responsibility”
In his first reaction to the pat on his back by the people of Bihar, man-of-the-moment Nitish said that the mandate was a clear indication that “Bihar has moved on”.
He said the result was an encouraging indication of the fact that “Bihar had voted for development”, and that he felt “huge responsibility” at the faith shown in him.
“The days of caste politics and empty talk are over,” he added. The CM felt that the results in Bihar “held important lessons” for the entire country about the kind of politics that needed to be practiced.
Nitish Kumar said that the people of Bihar were faced with a pertinent question, “Whether they would like to move forward or go back to the age of darkness.” And the people had made their verdict very clear.
The swearing-in of the new government is likely to be held on Friday (November 26) at 2:30 pm.
Not convinced, says Lalu
After remaining shuttered at his home till 3 pm, a visibly shocked former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav convened a press conference along with LJP’s Ram Vilas Paswan in which he congratulated Nitish for the victory, but also claimed that he smelled a rat regarding the stunning reversals in areas that had always remained his party’s stronghold.
"I am not accusing anyone, but there is some mystery in their victory, we will find out," he said, adding that he is “not against development”.
What adds insult to injury is that Lalu’s wife former CM Rabri Devi got a shock drubbing in both Raghopur and Sonepur, from where she was fighting elections.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad and LJP chief Ramvilas Paswan have not contested. While the RJD chief is a Lok Sabha MP from Saran, Ram Vilas Paswan is a Rajya Sabha MP.
Party Wise Results
Janata Dal (United)
Nitish Kumar’s party has won 115 seats with a positive swing of 27 seats in its favour.
Prominent winners: Rajiv Ranjan (Islampur), Prabhat Ranjan Singh (Bagha), Shravan Kumar (Nalanda), Manorama Prasad (Nutan), Rajesh Singh (Valmikinagar), Md Sarfuddin (Sheohar), Sunil Kumar (Biharsharief), Harinarayan Singh (Harnaut), Lalit Yadav (Darbhanga Rural), Abhiram Sharma (Jehanabad), Izhar Ahmed (Gaura Bauram), Gopal Mandal (Gopalpur), Pradip Kumar (Warsaliganj).
Outgoing Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is a MLC and has not contested the elections. He has another year to go as MLC.
His deputy Sushil Kumar Modi has also not contested the elections, he is also a MLC.
Bhartiya Janata Party
The BJP has won 91 seats on the back of the massive 36 seats positive swing towards it. The victory is huge for the BJP as it had only 55 seats in the current Assembly.
Prominent winners: Renu Devi (Bettiah), Nand Kishore Yadav (Patna Sahib), Sanjay Saraogi (Darbhanga Town), Satyadeo Narayan Arya Rajgir (Rajgir) Amarnath Gami (Hayaghat), Saba Zaffar (Amour), Aman Kumar (Pirpainti), Shailendra (Bihapur), Janardan Singh Sigriwal (Chhapra), Santosh Kushwaha (Baisi), Sunil Kumar Pintoo (Sitamarhi) Rajkishore Kesri (Purnia), Satish Chandra Dubey (Narkatiaganj), Bhagirathi Devi (Ramnagar), and Ajay Kumar Singh (Raxaul).
Rashtriya Janata Dal
Lalu Yadav’s party has received a serious drubbing, with it being able to win only 22 seats. The RJD has suffered negative swing of 32 seats against it. From 54 seats now to 22 this time, Lalu surely has a lot of introspection to do on the way forward.
What adds to his woes is that his wife and former CM Rabri Devi has lost from both Raghopur and Sonepur.
Of the few who have won under the lantern poll symbol are Abdul Gafoor (Mahishi), Akhtarul Iman (Kochadhaman), Surendra Prasad Yadav (Belaganj) and Abdul Bari Siddiqui (Alinagar).
His ally Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP has also fared poorly with it winning only three seat, a negative swing of four seats.
The wipe out was complete as Ram Vilas Paswan's son Pashupati Kumar Paras also lost from Alauli.
Congress
The grand old party could not replicate its 2009 Lok Sabha election success in Bihar despite extensive campaigning by its tallest leaders.
It has won only four seats. One of the prominent winners from the party is Sadanand Singh from Kahalgaon.
The losers include Rabri Devi's brother Sadhu Yadav (Gopalganj), state party president Chaudhary Mahboob Ali Kaiser (Simri Bakhtiarpur), Ranjeeta Ranjan (Bihariganj), Nagmani (Morwa), Lovely Anand (Alamnagar).
Others
‘Others’ which mainly constitutes of Independents have won just eight seats. The negative swing of 19 seats seems to be one the deciders in ensuring the resounding victory of the BJP-JD(U) combine.
Awadhesh Rai of CPI has won from Bachwara. Independents Vinay Bihari (Lauria), Dilip Verma (Sikta) are also on the winning side.
Time to celebrate
Wild celebrations erupted at the offices of the JD(U) and BJP both in the state capital Patna and in New Delhi. Party activists burst crackers, beat drums and danced to victory songs.
Although both the JD(U) and BJP, who have been aligned since 1996, made substantial gains over their 2005 strength, leaders of both credited the win largely to the charisma of Nitish Kumar, whose past is rooted in the country's now virtually defunct socialist movement.
The ruling alliance made substantial gains all across the state, decimating Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of Ram Vilas Paswan even in some of its known bastions.
The RJD and LJP, which had vowed to unseat Nitish Kumar, were likely to end up with on of their worst performance, dealing Lalu Prasad and Paswan -- who until a few years ago were considered kingmakers in national politics -- a terrible blow.
The six-phase polls ended on Saturday with an average voter turnout of 52 percent, with women outnumbering men in voting – as per the result for development.
First Published: Thursday, November 25, 2010, 06:56