Bihar bypolls: Pashupati Paras say Lalu Prasad’s campaigning loss for RJD

The ailing RJD supremo campaigned at Tarapur in Munger and Kusheshwar Asthan in Darbhanga towards the end of October after a hiatus of six years.

Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leader and Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras on Tuesday said Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad’s campaigning for his party’s candidates in the bypolls led to their losses in Kusheshwar Asthan and Tarapur assembly seats.

Lalu Prasad’s appearance had drawn huge crowds to rallies where he hit out at Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and his ally BJP. (ANI Photo) (Aftab Alam Siddiqui)

“The campaigning done by RJD chief Lalu Prasad in Kusheshwar Asthan and Tarapur assembly seats for by-polls in Bihar was a loss for their party rather than a gain,” Paras told news agency ANI.

The ailing RJD supremo campaigned at Tarapur in Munger and Kusheshwar Asthan in Darbhanga towards the end of October after a hiatus of six years. He had returned to his home turf after about three-and-a-half years having served his jail term in the multi-crore fodder scam case and undergoing treatment in Delhi.

Prasad’s appearance had drawn huge crowds to rallies where he hit out at Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal United (JDU) head Nitish Kumar and his ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“People of Bihar had made Tejashwi the chief minister. But Nitish Kumar formed the government through cheating and manipulation. Had I been outside (jail), it would not have happened,” he had told a crowd at Idgah Maidan in Tarapur.

“Now, I am back in Bihar and will continue to be among you people. We have to fight,” he added, while urging people to defeat the “double engine” government of Kumar.

However, RJD candidate Arun Kumar Sah lost to JD(U)’s Rajiv Kumar Singh by a narrow margin of 4,000 votes. In Kusheshwar Asthan, the JD(U) won by a comfortable margin of more than 12,000 votes. Both seats were held by JD(U) leaders whose deaths had necessitated the by-election.

The RJD had raised concerns of “rigged” elections in both the seats and deployed heavy artillery for vote counting. Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav had objected to the posting of a police officer in Kusheshwar Asthan, following which the officer was taken off election duty by the commission.

The party had also urged for postal ballots to be counted first, which the commission had agreed to, but added that counting of postal ballots will be done in a separate hall.