By winning the Purnea Assembly bypoll, Bihar’s ruling JD(U)-BJP coalition caused disappointment among the state’s Opposition parties, especially the Congress and the RJD, on Wednesday. The BJP managed to retain the seat largely due to a sympathy wave and a collapse of unity in the Opposition parties.
Contesting on a BJP ticket in the prestigious eastern constituency, slain BJP legislator Raj Kishore Keshri’s widow Kiran Keshri won by defeating her nearest rival and Congress candidate Ram Charitra Yadav, who had the LJP’s support, by a margin of 23,665 votes in the bypoll held on Saturday. Raj Kishore Kesri, who was publicly stabbed to death by a woman schoolteacher in January, had won in Purnea in the last four consecutive Assembly polls — 2000, twice in 2005, and 2010 — as a BJP candidate.
In a fiercely-contested triangular bypoll, the winning homemaker and political novice polled 53,732 votes against Mr Yadav’s 30,067 votes, while the CPI(M)’s Amit Sarkar, son of slain party MLA Ajit Sarkar, secured only 17,113 votes. Both Mr Yadav and Mr Sarkar saw a frustrating fall in their vote share in comparison to the 2010 Assembly polls, in which they had polled 40,000 and 23,000 votes respectively.
Despite a host of fresh issues embarrassing the Nitish Kumar-led government and a renewed stress on secularism in the campaign, the Opposition parties failed to defeat the BJP from Purnea.
The RJD-LJP combine, which has contested here in 2010 to secure a lacklustre 4,000 votes, showed cracks this time and neither party fielded its candidate.
While the RJD supported the CPI(M) and the LJP supported the Congress, neither RJD boss Lalu Prasad Yadav nor LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan campaigned.
CM Nitish Kumar of the JD(U) and deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi actively campaigned along with other NDA leaders.