In a setback to the ruling Grand Alliance in Bihar, NDA constituent Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RSLP) retained the Harlakhi Assembly seat in by-poll as the party candidate Sudhanshu Shekhar on Tuesday defeated the Congress nominee Mohammad Shabbir by a margin of 18, 650 votes.
The Harlakhi Assembly by-poll in Madhubani district was necessitated after the sudden death of RLSP candidate Basant Kumar Kushwaha, who had won the Assembly elections in November last year by a margin of 4,000 votes against Congress candidate Mr. Shabbir. However, Mr. Kushwaha passed away a day before taking oath as a member of the house.
Following this, the RLSP fielded Mr. Shekhar, son of the deceased party MLA in the by-poll.
Mr. Shekhar polled 62,434 votes against the Congress candidate who received 43,784 votes. CPI candidate Ram Naresh Pandey received 19, 835 votes, while NOTA (None Of The Above) option came fourth with 8,326 votes.
‘Sympathy wave’
Poll analysts and ruling JD(U) leaders, however, said Mr. Shekhar won the seat riding on a ‘sympathy wave’ even as Opposition leaders dubbed the victory as “a defeat of the Grand Alliance”.
“It was a by-poll and not Assembly poll. It appears that the RLSP candidate received sympathy votes as his father had an unexpected death soon after winning the poll last year”, JD(U) spokesperson Neeraj Kumar told The Hindu .
However, RLSP State president Arun Kumar told journalists “the victory of Harlakhi seat indicates that people of Bihar are getting fed-up with the Grand Alliance government. They have realised their mistake of forming the Grand Alliance government in the last Assembly elections”.
Nitish stayed away
Though RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav had campaigned for Mr. Shekhar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar preferred to stay away from the hustings. However, top State NDA leaders like Sushil Kumar Modi, Jitan Ram Manjhi, Ram Vilas Paswan and Upendra Kushwaha joined the campaign for the RLSP candidate.
In the last State Assembly elections in Bihar, the Congress won 27 seats, becoming part of the Grand Alliance government led by JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar.
