Major jolt to BJP in Bihar
Outer Manipur with NCP, Cong retains Dhubri

NEW DELHI, Nov 2 (UNI) — The Congress, the CPM, the Janata Dal (United) and an Independent shared honours in the October 28 Lok Sabha elections in Bihar as Mr Abdul Hamid of the Congress won the Dhubri seat in Assam and the Nationalist Congress Party annexed the Outer Manipur parliamentary constituency.

The BJP's roller-coaster ride in the just concluded Lok Sabha poll came for a stunning blow in Bihar with the party licking dust in three of the four seats.

The Congress, the CPM and Independent Pappu Yadav defeated BJP candidates from Rajmahal (Reserved), Bhagalpur and Purnea seats, respectively. The state's ruling RJD conceded Khagaria seat to the Janata Dal (United).

Elections in these four Bihar constituencies were deferred because of floods.

The final strength of the parties in the Lol Sabha from the state now stands as such — BJP 23 Janata Dal (United) 18, RJD seven, Congress four, CPM one and Independent one.

The CPM which was wiped out from the state in the last parliamentary elections and drew a blank in the recently concluded poll for 50 of the 54 seats in the state, romped home from Bhagalpur, where its nominee Subodh Roy emerged winner defeating his nearest BJP rival by a convincing margin.

Independent candidate Rajesh Ranjan, alias Pappu Yadav a former member of the Lok Sabha, defeated Mr Jai Krishna Mandal of the BJP by more than two lakh votes in Purnea.

Mr Yadav, who has been detained in a murder case, fought the election from jail.

The Janata Dal (United) was able to give some semblance of respectability to the alliance by retaining the Khagaria seat. Party candidate Renu Kumari won the seat defeating RJD's Nayana Rana by over 38,000 votes. This was the only seat the party contested out of the four which went to the polls.

The Congress now has 114 members in the Lok Sabha. Congress candidate Abdul Hamid won the Dhubri seat in Assam, defeating his nearest rival BJP candidate Bimal Oswal by a margin of 21, 340 votes.

Nationalist Congress Party's Holkhomang Haokip was declared elected from the Outer Manipur parliamentary constituency, defeating his nearest rival R.K. Thekho of the Congress by a margin of over 28,000 votes.

The constituency has a total electorate of more than 700,000 of which about 50 per cent cast their vote, despite threats from underground organisations, including the NSCN (IM).

After receiving a severe drubbing in the earlier three phases of the poll in 50 constituencies of the state, the RJD-Congress-CPM alliance retrieved some lost ground.

The alliance had bagged only 10 of the 50 seats that had gone to the polls in the first three phases with the ruling RJD winning seven and the Congress three.

Bolstered by an alliance and fissures in the Muslim-Yadav-Dalit votebank of the RJD, the BJP-JD(U) combine had won 40 seats with the BJP garnering 23 and the JD(U) 17.

However, cracks in the Muslim-Yadav-Dalit votebank of the ruling party and the anti-incumbency factor were not manifest in the four constituencies that went to the polls in the fourth and final phase.

Reacting to BJP's defeat, Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly Sushil Kumar Modi said senior party leaders would review the performance soon.

"I feel there is no room for complacency and we should work even harder for the assembly poll," he said, adding the defeat of three sitting party MPs had only hardened BJP's resolve to rid the state of RJD's "misrule".

PATNA: The RJD President, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, said the results for the four parliamentary seats in Bihar showed people’s indignation against "a fortnight-old communal dispensation" at the Centre and claimed the BJP-JD(U) alliance would be routed in the Bihar Assembly poll early next year.

"It is our victory that we pulled off a good showing hardly a fortnight after we suffered an electoral blow...The results have proved beyond doubt that RJD's mass support is in tact," the RJD President claimed, reacting to the results for the four seats.

He claimed he campaigned for his party allies, (Cong and CPM) in Rajmahal and Bhagalpur and unseated the BJP nominees.

He, however, said his party candidate Naina Rana could not win in Khagaria "due to local issues like floods".

The Congress disputed the claim of the RJD President that the victory of party nominee in Rajmahal was victory of the RJD-Congress combine, saying it was "purely a success of the Congress".

"Laloo didn't even campaign for Thomas in Rajmahal.... It is purely our victory...No one can take credit for this," Congress Legislature Party leader Ramashray Prasad Singh told mediapersons.

He said his party was irrevocably committed to creating a separate Jharkhand state out of Bihar "and our stand has immensely benefited us".