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Journalism of Courage
RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Wednesday won the battle of prestige against CM Nitish Kumar ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. RJD candidate and former MP Prabhunath Singh defeated JD(U) nominee and HRD Minister Prashant Kumar Shahi by 1,37,126 votes in the Maharajganj Lok Sabha bypoll.
Congress candidate Jitendra Swamy lost his security deposit after having polled only 33,905 votes.
The JD(U) had lost the seat to the RJD in the 2009 elections.
The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of RJD MP Umashankar Singh.
While the RJDs victory over Shahi may not surprise political pundits,the margin of loss does give disturbing signals for Nitish,who had succeeded in making state politics unipolar for some time now and had been,of late,daring alliance partner BJP over Narendra Modi. The Maharajganj loss might well mean Nitish losing some of his bargaining powers with the BJP over the NDAs PM candidate choice.
The huge margin of loss is even more embarrassing for Nitish with his political bete noire Narendra Modi sweeping four Assembly and two LS bypolls in Gujarat.
While Lalu Prasad can heave a sigh of relief,the loss may make Nitish rethink his political strategy and take serious note of Lalu taking to fields vigorously for the last nine months.
Lalu,who was camping in Maharajganj for over a week,conducting public meetings and road shows till 3 am,said: What will Nitish say about his media-hyped development model now? The so-called good governance is a charade. It is peoples befitting reply to Nitishs arrogance and overriding bureaucratic arrogance. He has lost the semi final and will lose the final as well.
Shahi,on the other hand, blamed it on poor poll management and coalition dharma not being observed.
