Laloo fights back as BJP-Samata march on
The Rashtriya Janata Dal, led by former Bihar chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, is back in the reckoning, bagging 16 of the 48 seats declared in Bihar so far and putting a brake in the onward
march of the Bharatiya Janata Party-Samata Party combine in Bihar.
The BJP and the RJD have won 16 seats each. The former's ally, the Samata Party, won nine seats while the RJD's allies, the Congress bagged five seats and the Rashtriya Janata Party picked up one.
The Communist Party of India, which bagged four seats in the 1996 election, was completely wiped out. Railway Minister Ram Vilas Paswan won from Hajipur defeating his nearest RJD rival Ram Sunder Das by 177,000 votes.
The CPI's biggest setback was the ignominious defeat of Union
Agriculture Minister Chaturanan Mishra, who was relegated to the third position behind Congress candidate Shakil Ahmed and the BJP's Hukumdeo Narayan Yadav.
In Madhepura, Laloo Prasad Yadav defeated
Janata Dal president Sharad Yadav by 52,000 votes.
Samata Party heavyweight Nitish Kumar also made it to the Lok
Sabha defeating his nearest RJD rival Vijay Krishna by a margin of
22,000 votes from Barh.
RJP candidate Anand Mohan, arrested recently in a dacoity case, was victorious in Sheohar by 25,000 votes over his Samata Party rival Hari Kishore Singh.
Samata Party president George Fernandes won from Nalanda, defeating Ram Swaroop Prasad of the RJD.
In Sasaram, BJP candidate Muni Lal defeated his RJD rival Ram Keshi Prasad by 88,728 votes in a seven-cornered contest. In Khunti, the BJP's Karia Munda, a
former Union minister, defeated his Congress rival Sushila
Karketta by 20,000 votes in a four-cornered contest. The party
retained both seats.
In Hazaribagh, state BJP president Yashwant Sinha trounced CPI
candidate Bhubaneshwar Prasad Mehta by 150,000 votes in an eight-cornered contest. In Dhanbad, BJP nominee Rita Verma defeated Marxist Coordination Committee candidate A K Roy by 163,000 votes in a nine-cornered contest.
In Koderma, BJP candidate Ritlal Verma defeated RJD nominee Abid Hussein by 97,000 votes in a
seven-cornered contest, while from Giridih, the BJP's R K Pande defeated the Congress's Rajendra Prasad Singh by 68,000 votes in a five-cornered contest. The party retained both seats.
In Betia, BJP nominee Madan Prasad Jaiswal defeated RJD candidate Moitur Rehman by a margin of more than 40,000 votes in a nine-cornered contest to retain the seat.
In Bagaha, Samata Party candidate Mahindra Baitha retained the
seat defeating Janata Dal nominee Purnabsi Ram by more than 50,000 votes in a six-cornered contest. In Gopalganj constituency, the Samata Party's Abdul Ghafoor wrested the seat from RJD's Lal Babu Prasad by 70,000 votes in a six-cornered contest.
The Arrah seat, which was earlier held by the RJD, was wrested by Samata Party candidate H P Singh from former Union minister Chandradeo Prasad Verma by more than 58,000 votes.
However, the BJP lost the Lohardagga seat to the Congress.
Indranath Bhagat defeated BJP rival Lalit Oraon by
more than 5,000 votes in a seven-cornered contest.
The BJP wrested the Dumka seat from JMM-S supremo Shibu Soren, when its candidate Babulal Marandi defeated the JMM-S stalwart by more than 12,500 votes.
In Maharajganj, Samata Party candidate Prabhunath
Singh played havoc with Congress nominee Mahachand Singh defeating him by more than 200,000 votes to retain the seat.
In Sitamarhi, RJD nominee Sitaram Yadav wrested the seat from Janata Dal candidate Nawal Kishore Rai by 4,000 votes.
In Ballia, RJD candidate Rajbanshi Mahato defeated
his nearest CPI rival Shatrughan Singh by 52,000
votes in a five-cornered contest to retain the seat. In
Jehanabad, RJD nominee Surendra Yadav wrested the seat from the CPI defeating his Samata Party rival Arun Kumar by more than 28,000 votes in a nine-cornered contest.
From Rosera, the RJD's Pitamber Paswan romped home,
defeating Samata Party candidate Ram Sewak Hazari
by more than 43,000 votes in a four-cornered
contest. In Siwan, the RJD's Mohammad Sahabuddin defeated BJP rival N S Dubey by more than 100,000 votes to retain the seat.
Darbhanga was retained by RJD nominee M A Fatmi, who defeated his BJP rival Tarakant Jha by a slender
margin of 1,732 votes. In Motihari, RJD candidate Rama Devi
wrested the seat from BJP nominee Radha Mohan Singh, defeating the latter by 11,000 votes.
From Vaishali, RJD candidate Raghuvansh Prasad Singh won
against the Samata Party's Bishen Patel by 41,000
votes to retain the seat, whereas in Jhanjhapur, the RJD's Surendra Prasad Yadav defeated the Samata Party's J N Chaudhury by 37,000 votes to wrest the seat.
In Ranchi, BJP candidate Ram Tahal Chaudhury defeated his nearest Congress rival Keshav Kamlesh by more than 100,000 votes in a 12-cornered contest to retain
the seat.
In Jamshedpur, BJP nominee Abha Mahato
defeated Independent candidate and former Tata Steel managing
director Rusi Mody by more than 14,000 votes in an 11-cornered contest to retain the seat.
In Khagaria, the Samata Party's Shakuni Chaudhury wrested the seat from the RJD's Anil Kumar Yadav by 83,000 votes, while from Buxar, BJP nominee Lal Munichoubey won against RJD candidate Udai Pratap Singh by about 85,000 votes to retain the
seat.
In Bhagalpur, the BJP's Prabhas Tewary trounced the RJD's Chunchun Yadav by 92,000 votes to wrest the seat. From Palamau, BJP nominee Brajamohan Ram retained the seat defeating RJD candidate Udai Narayan Chaudhury by 81,000 votes.
The Congress, however, wrested the Singhbhum seat.
Its nominee Bijoy Singhsoy defeated his BJP rival Chitrasen Sinku by more than 11,000 votes.
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