The ruling NDA in Bihar triumphed in the by-elections to four assembly segments on Saturday, securing victories in Imamganj, Ramgarh, Tarari, and Belaganj.
The NDA’s performance provides a boost to the alliance ahead of the state’s assembly elections, scheduled for next year.
While the NDA retained the Imamganj seat, it wrested the other three constituencies from the INDIA bloc, marking a setback for the opposition, particularly the RJD, which had held Belaganj since the 1990s.
The JD(U), led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, clinched the Belaganj seat with Manorama Devi defeating the RJD’s Vishwanath Kumar Singh by a margin of more than 21,000 votes.
The defeat in Belaganj proved to be a significant blow for the INDIA bloc, as it marked the loss of a seat that had been a stronghold for the RJD for decades. Manorama Devi, a former MLC, emerged victorious against Singh, whose seat became vacant following his father Surendra Prasad Yadav's election to the Lok Sabha.
The victory margin surpassed the 17,285 votes polled by Jan Suraaj candidate Mohd Amjad, whom the RJD had blamed for splitting the Muslim vote.
JD(U) national spokesperson Rajiv Ranjan Prasad attributed the victory to the trust people of Bihar have in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
“The people of Bihar deserve kudos for rejecting the negativity of the opposition and reposing their trust in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Under his leadership, the NDA will win more than 200 seats of the 243-strong assembly in 2025,” Prasad said.
The RJD also suffered a blow in Ramgarh, with its candidate, Ajit Singh, finishing a distant third. Prashant Kishor’s prediction that the RJD would finish third or fourth in the constituency came true, leading to tensions within the party.
Kishor had previously forecast that Jan Suraaj, the political outfit he founded, would pose a strong challenge. However, in Ramgarh, Jan Suraaj’s candidate Sushil Kumar Singh secured less than four per cent of the vote.
In Tarari, BJP candidate Vishal Prashant, son of former JD(U) strongman Sunil Pandey, pulled off a surprise victory over CPI(ML)’s Raju Yadav by a margin of just over 10,000 votes.
Jan Suraaj’s candidate Kiran Singh, who had initially planned to field a former Vice Chief of the Army, registered less than four per cent of the vote in the constituency.
The most respectable performance from Jan Suraaj came in Imamganj, where its candidate Jitendra Paswan finished third with over 20 per cent of the vote.
Despite the strong performance, the seat was claimed by Deepa Kumari, daughter-in-law of Union Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, who secured a narrow win over RJD’s Raushan Kumar by a margin of less than 6,000 votes.
With the exception of Ashok Kumar Singh, who won in Ramgarh, all the winning candidates will be debuting in the Bihar Legislative Assembly.
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