Patna: In a major embarrassment for the recently formed Mahagathbandhan government, the JD(U) on Thursday ended up conceding the Kurhani Assembly seat to the BJP with which the party's supremo Nitish Kumar snapped ties four months ago. JD(U) candidate Manoj Singh Kushwaha polled 73,008 votes, while BJP's Kedar Prasad Gupta got 76,653 to wrest the seat from the ruling "Mahagathbandhan" which prides itself as a symbol of what smaller, but united parties could achieve in the face of the saffron party's near hegemony.
The by-election was necessitated by the disqualification of Anil Kumar Sahani, an RJD MLA, whose party gave up its claim on the seat and backed its new ally which was pitted against a former alliance partner. Since the beginning of counting, the votes showed quite an oscillating trend between the two candidates, even though BJP managed to secure the win at last.
"The victory is an affirmation of the people's faith in the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a resounding slap in the face of Mahagathbandhan which came to power by fraud and continues to cheat the masses," said Samrat Chaudhary, senior BJP leader and former minister, as he joined the jubilations outside the counting centre in Muzaffarpur.
Former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi also came out with a video statement taunting the ruling coalition for having made "even RJD president Lalu Prasad's kidney transplant an emotive issue". He also challenged Nitish Kumar, his former boss, to "take moral responsibility for the defeat and resign, just like he did in 2014 when the JD(U) was drubbed in the Lok Sabha polls".
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JD(U) President Upendra Kushwaha, who was one of the principal campaigners of his party, sought to take the defeat on the chin and display sportsmanship. "We need to learn a lot from the loss in Kurhani. The first lesson is, we must follow the people and their will, and not expect the other way round," Kushwaha tweeted, rather cryptically, while sharing a famous Hindi poem that inspires readers to achieve equanimity in the midst of ups and downs. He also said that the party will review the Kurhani loss and hold discussions over it with the leaders of the grand alliance. Senior RJD leader and former minister Shyak Rajak echoed the same and said that the party will review the reason behind this defeat.
“We emerged victorious because of the hard work done by our party workers. We have defeated seven parties of the grand alliance and one party that had fielded candidates to cut our vote. We defeated altogether eight parties alone. The false promises that Nitish Kumar made have been defeated. He has created the nexus of liquor mafia and parallel liquor industry in Bihar," Jaiswal said.
Meanwhile, the BJP office was lit with celebrations with sweets being distributed at the BJP office and the party workers celebrating with crackers and Gulal to express happiness over their victory. BJP state president Sanjay Jaiswal congratulated the party workers but did not miss the chance to take a dig at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The Kurhani seat has an unusual prestige attached to it as the seat had fallen vacant following the disqualification of the sitting MLA from RJD Anil Sahni in a scam. Other political parties like AIMIM and Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) had also fielded their candidates for this seat, and both these parties managed to procure a good amount of votes in the elections. VIP candidate Nilabh Kumar secured 9,988 votes, whereas AIMIM candidate Mohammad Gulam Murtaza got 3,202 votes.
It was the third by-poll in Bihar after the formation of the grand alliance government. Earlier BJP secured victory on the Gopalganj seat whereas the Mokama seat went to RJD.
