RJD wins Bihar bypoll,Lalu Prasad says ‘downfall of Nitish Kumar has begun’

The huge loss margin brings a big embarrassment forNitish Kumar,who had stiffened his political posturing against BJP over Narendra Modi. Nitish,who had not been dismissive of Lalu Prasad by not taking his name in poll campaigns,may well have to rework his political strategy to counter the RJD,which has started early build-up for 2014 Lok Sabha polls with a series of public meetings for over nine months now.

JD-U had lost the seat only by 2,500 votes to RJD in last election. Ironically,Prabhunath Singh had then contested as JD-U candidate and lost to RJD’s Umashankar Singh. Singh’s death necessitated the bypoll. Congress’s veiled strategy to help Nitish Kumar by fielding Jitendra Swamy,a Rajput candidate opposite Rajput strongman Singh did not pay off as Swamy lost his security deposit.

RJD president Lalu Prasad said: “I had been telling it beforehand that there is no competition in Maharajganj for RJD. The downfall of Nitish Kumar has begun. He has become arrogant with power and people have sensed it fast.”

JD-U candidate PK Shahi blamed his defeat on poor poll management and also took dig at alliance partner BJP for not cooperating. “We did not have workers to get people to poll booths”,said Shahi.