Maharajganj: Lalu Prasad-led RJD showed on Wednesday that the party was very much a force to reckon with in Bihar when its candidate Prabhunath Singh dealt a massive blow to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar by trouncing JD(U) candidate and state Education Minister PK Shahi in the Maharajganj Lok Sabha bypoll by a huge margin of over 1,37,000 votes.
Prabhunath Singh polled over 3.81 lakh votes, PK Shahi got over 2.44 lakh votes with Congress candidate Jitendra Swami managing just a little over 22,000 votes. Prabhunath Singh was a JD(U) MP in the last Lok Sabha.
The result of the bypoll came as a shot in the arm for Lalu Prasad, who has been out of power in the state for nearly eight years and is finding it tough to counter Nitish Kumar's development agenda.
RJD candidate Prabhunath Singh took the lead in the very first round which kept on increasing as counting progressed with jubilant RJD workers taking out rallies, bursting crackers, singing and dancing to celebrate the massive win. A stunned Shahi conceded defeat soon after Singh's lead crossed the 50,000-vote mark and returned from the counting centre with his supporters. JD(U) leaders also went back after locking the party office in Maharajganj as it became clear that the RJD was headed for a massive win.
The Congress which put up Swami, the son of former RJD MP Umashankar Singh whose death necessitated the by-poll, finished a distant third. Swami also forfeited his deposit as he failed to secure more than one sixth of the valid votes polled.
Sources have told IBNLive that Nitish Kumar's development claims and Shahi's candidature were not going to cut much ice with the Maharajganj voters as the region is one of the most backward areas of the state and its residents are polarised along caste lines. The recent trouble in the JD(U)-BJP alliance also contributed to the setback as several BJP leaders made sure that their workers did not go all out during the election campaign.
Sources add that the upper castes, which form BJP's votebank, were not keen on voting for Shahi and instead opted for the RJD candidate. While both the RJD and Congress candidate belong to the Rajput community, one of the dominant castes in Maharajganj; Shahi is a Bhumihar.
Lalu's Muslim-Yadav votebank combined very well with the Rajput votes to ensure Singh's massive win as the JD(U)-BJP combine fail to galvanise its voters with sources saying that local leaders of both the parties worked against the official candidate.
The Congress with a weak party structure failed to make its mark as Swami could not get any sympathy wave going after his father's death. While Shahi blamed the recent friction between the JD(U)-BJP combine and said that workers of the coalition worked against him and ensured his loss even as Lalu Prasad and other RJD leaders claimed that the people of Bihar have rejected state government's "tall claims" of development and the "result is the beginning of the end of Nitish Kumar".
BJP leader and Bihar Animal Husbandry & Fisheries Resources Department Minister Giriraj Singh, however, rejected Shahi allegations as well as Lalu's claims. He said that there was no problem within the alliance and the loss was due to local caste factors. He added that Lalu was living in a dreamland and the people of Bihar will vote for development during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
A visibly pleased Lalu said in Patna that the RJD was on a comeback trail in the state and the real battle will the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
"This is just the semifinal. Nitish Kumar has failed on all fronts and Maharajganj voters have given him a befitting reply. The final will be in 2014 and Nitish will be routed. Maharajganj result is a big and important win for RJD and Prabhunath Singh is a mere nominee," he said.
In fact Lalu Prasad had stayed in Maharajganj for over 10 days and intensively campaigned following favourable feedback from his workers And in the end the result was very much to his satisfaction.
In the 2009 Lok Sabha election RJD's Uma Shankar Singh had secured a narrow win of just 2,797 over Prabhunath Singh who was then a JD(U) candidate. Uma Shankar Singh had won 2,11,610 votes in the 2009 election compared to 2,08,813 by Prabhunath Singh.
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